Analysis Finds Soccer Interest in United States Is Highly Regionalized
The top 20 most “soccer-obsessed” states have something in common: Almost none of them are in the Midwest or the South.
That is according to an analysis conducted a published by SeatPick.
States are largely clustered by regions
SeatPick analyzed Google search data from across the United States to find out what sort of interest in soccer it could find as the World Cup is coming to North America this summer.
The results show interest is strongest on the East Coast and West Coast but is harder to find in the South or Midwest.
From the South, only Georgia, Florida and Texas appear in the top 20.
For the Midwest, only Kansas and Illinois made the top 20, and neither of them were in the top 10.
The highest interest was found in California followed by Massachusetts, New Jersey and Washington.
The lowest interest was found in Kentucky, North Dakota, South Dakota, West Virginia and Mississippi.
What might explain the differences?
The most-likely explanation for the states with the highest interest is where World Cup games are scheduled to be played this summer because Google searches for World Cup tickets were among the terms that were studied (see below for more on methodology): That would be Georgia, Massachusetts, Texas, Missouri, Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Washington.
Beyond that, demographics could play a role.
California, Florida and Texas have the highest Hispanic populations in the United States according to the latest figures from the Census Bureau.
Rounding out the top five? New York and Illinois.
Some research, including a Harris Poll study published earlier this year, showed much higher interest in soccer among Mexicans (92%) than people in the United States (72%).
Methodology
Using data collected in February, SeatPick built its U.S. Soccer Obsession Index by looking for these soccer-related search terms: World Cup fixtures, World Cup 2026, World Cup schedule, USA World Cup, World Cup tickets, FIFA rankings, FIFA World Cup tickets, FIFA World Cup schedule, FIFA tickets.
Search volumes were adjusted by population using Google Adwords’ reach feature for each state, producing a per capita rate of interest that was expressed as a number of residents per search.
That was used to create a normalized score ranging from 1-100.