LOS ANGELES: Record numbers of football fans in the United States are bracing for another edge-of-the-seat match today as their team battles to make the World Cup second round — and prove the sport’s growing popularity.
Nearly 25 million viewers tuned in to watch their last game against Portugal, astonishingly more than the NBA finals or baseball’s World Series, mainstays of the US sporting landscape along with American football.
Sports bars and pubs across the country were heaving with fans Sunday night, when the US team came within a whisker of winning an instant pass to the second round, only to be cruelly deprived by a last-gasp Portuguese goal.
But will the millions of football fans evaporate once the US team is out of the contest?
Experts say this spike in viewership is not a blip. AFP
