I'll tell anyone who will listen that I think Major League Soccer's longstanding indifference to the general sports fan is wrongheaded. There seems to be a conflation of "general sports fan" with "soccer hater," and while one may be a subset of the other, they're not the same thing.
Some people just like sports. Soccer is a a sport. Therefore, some of these people are going to like soccer, which is why doing stupid shit like calling a soccer team in Texas "FC Dallas" when football in Texas is more closely associated with the American version than maybe anywhere else in the country is counterproductive, because it's not going to make a lick of sense to the casual sports fan who doesn't implicitly hate the sport. It becomes a barrier to entry.
Anyway, here's Drew Carey explaining exactly how that progression from sports fan to soccer fan works to David Letterman:
Hell Has Just Frozen Over
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April 3, 2011
Opening Day Jitters
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March 20, 2011
Bob Bradley's Five Favorite Words
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March 7, 2011
A Big If, MLS Edition
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February 28, 2011