More U.S. soccer apparel sold on Fanatics.com in the first five days of the 2014 World Cup than during the entire 2010 event, according Fanatics Inc.
Merchandise of U.S. captain Clint Dempsey, who scored the fifth-fastest goal in World Cup history in a 2-1 victory over Ghana on June 16, was the second-highest selling of all soccer players, trailing only Brazilian forward Neymar, according to the report from Bloomberg. Both rank in the top 10 for athletes in all sports.
After Neymar and Dempsey, the best-selling players are strikers Robin van Persie of the Netherlands, Germany’s Thomas Mueller, Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi of Argentina. Those rankings include sales of jerseys and t-shirts.
New York is the Fanatics’ top-selling market, followed by Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington and Chicago. Fanatics.com has sold World Cup merchandise in 37 countries since the event began on June 12.
The sell-throughs came as nearly 16 million people in the U.S. watched the country’s World Cup opener on TV. The Nielsen company says 11.1 million people who saw the U.S. beat Ghana, 2-1 on Monday on ESPN represented that network’s biggest audience for a soccer match.
The viewership represented ESPN’s highest-rated telecast since Florida State won the national college American football title in January.
ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC have averaged 4.1 million viewers through the first 14 matches of the World Cup, marking an increase of 23 percent over the 2010 World Cup, according to ESPN.
Still, a survey of 2,286 adults online between May 14 and 19 by The Harris Poll found that One in ten Americans (10 percent) says soccer (men's and/or women's) is a sport they follow, putting it on the same ground as men's tennis (with 10 percent following that as well). This is relatively small when compared to the half of Americans who follow pro football (51 percent), the nearly four in ten following baseball (37 percent) or the three in ten who follow men's college football (30 percent). However, it's worth noting that interest in soccer is stronger among younger generations of Americans (11 percent Millennials, 16 percent Gen Xers, 6 percent Baby Boomers, 5 percent Matures), which runs inverse to the trend seen for most sports, with older Americans typically more likely to display an interest.
Turning again to interest by generation, Millennials and Gen Xers show stronger interest than Baby Boomers and Matures throughout the tournament, ranging from over one-fourth of the younger generations (27 percent each vs. 11 percent Baby Boomers, 8 percent Matures) interested in watching or listening to the first round to roughly four in ten (42 percent Millennials, 39 percent Gen Xers) showing interest in the final match.
Interest is stronger still among Hispanic Americans, with roughly half showing an interest in the quarterfinals (47 percent), semifinals/third place match (49 percent) and final match (51 percent).
