The Soccer Scorecard

I have a terrible habit of trying to form an argument through vague generalizations.  I can go on at length to discuss my opinion of a focused topic, but eventually end up painting with a broad brush.  My recent scribbles on eurosnobs or MLS hardcores, or whatever designations I feel like throwing around could come across as unfair generalizations.  So, in an attempt to clear this up, I want to try to reexplain my position on soccer fanhood through yet another arbitrary exercise.

I believe that every American can define their soccer fanhood along three dimensions: local team, foreign team, national team.  The degree of their support in each of these dimensions helps define who they are in terms of the soccer community.  For each area, a person could give themselves a letter grade as follows:

F: No awareness or interest in the team.  Would gladly take $5 over the team winning any kind of championship (i.e. Bill Simmons' litmus test for the WNBA)

D: Aware of the team, but not interested.

C: Slightly knowledgeable of team, could easily be swayed to one side of the fence or the other.

B: Follows the team, watches a good amount of games on TV or in person, and has formed opinions on team news.

A: Diehard fan, almost never misses a game, likely travels often to see team in person, and has scheduled life around matches on more than one occasion.

Under this subjective scale, you could say that an MLS diehard has an A grade for the local team and lower grades for foreign and national sides, a eurosnob would have a similar score but for a foreign team, while a member of Sam's Army might lean towards just the high grade for USMNT.

Back to my original point in all of this mess, the main goal for American soccer is still to increase interest in the sport by whatever means necessary.  Having a high grade in one area tends to lean towards high grades in other areas.  Foreign fans may have a poor opinion of MLS, but at least they have an opinion, which is still better than having no opinion at all.  MLS hardcores might bristle at the thought of Americans having high soccer IQs but low MLS interest, but its still on the path out of the so-called "Dark Ages" where wide swaths of the population would fail on all three levels.