Mike Francesa Knows Not of Copa America

Mike Francesa has shown he’s not that into soccer before, and did so again today when he couldn’t understand why Sports Illustrated would devote a cover and 10-page spread to Copa America. Francesa said we’ve been hearing that soccer will take off in America for 40 years now. He also said that it is untrue that the youth of America are into soccer because his kids who are big sports fans aren’t, and that nobody in the WFAN building knew what the Copa America tournament was when it starts next week.

Some of what Francesa is saying here has some merit – anecdotally, hyperbole about soccer’s impending domestic explosion has been in the conversation for decades – but he’s also not working with the biggest sample size to form his opinion.

In disclosure, I’m a casual soccer observer and consider myself largely ignorant about the sport, but I do plan on watching a lot of these games, and attending at least one or two of them.

While I won’t hazard to guess on what television ratings will be like, it does seem like there’s a lot of interest in this tournament. For example, it costs over $100 after fees on StubHub to get into the building for the semi-finals in Chicago on June 22nd. The teams competing in this matchup are to-be-determined, it’s far from a slam dunk the USMNT will even make it this far, and even if you think Argentina (where you get to see Lionel Messi) is a shoo-in for the semis, there’s only a 50% chance they’d be on that side of the bracket. It’s over $200 to get into the finals at MetLife Stadium on June 26th.

As far as buzz goes, I would be willing to bet that our site gets more traffic from soccer posts – Copa America, Champions League Finals, and the Euro Cup – over the next two months than we do from baseball stories. Our site has already run two Copa America previews by Ty Duffy – here and here – as well as this podcast with Fox Sports studio anchor Rob Stone breaking down the tournament:

[Video via @RNs_Funhouse]