Soccer: America's sport since 1970, but transformed in 2026

Soccer has always been the sport of the future in the United States, because eventually, the hunkered down sports hatches that kept America's big sports at home would eventually break down, and not only would this country be a great exporter of sport, but it would import them too.

Or, if you're a believer in "demography is destiny", eventually, the changing demographics of the country would eventually take hold in the sports that America holds closest to its heart. That has already begun to take shape with the challenges that football is facing existentially and the consumption changes of new generations of Americans, larger than any previous to them, but with the 2026 World Cup coming to the United States (and Mexico and Canada), perhaps America's sport of the future for over 50 years at that point may well become the sport it cherishes the most.

The 1994 World Cup is a distant memory now, but still a vivid one for anyone in this country who was touched by the tournament. Watching a rag-tag US group beat mightily favored Colombia, play to two crowds of over 94,000 at the Rose Bowl (and indoors at the old Silverdome), transformed a group of youngsters into soccer fans and players who formed the backbone of soccer in this country as it is now. Soccer in this country wouldn't be what is without the 1994 World Cup, Paul Caligiuri's goal against Trinidad in November of 1989, and Landon Donovan's heroics in two World Cups in the following decade, but the 1994 World Cup sprouted the seeds that were heavily watered in future years, creating the garden that is soccer in this country now.

Said garden was starving for water after the US failed to qualify for the World Cup that is to start tomorrow, but the garden did get a fresh injection with this announcement. As much as it seemed to be a shoe-in that a combined North American World Cup bid would be accepted without much handwringing, FIFA has proven time and again, even in this "new era" that the accepted standard and the obvious answers aren't always so obvious.

Mexico and Canada presence helped the bid get away from more of the delicate geopolitical issues that even if they didn't weigh the bid down all that much were still certainly present no matter who will occupy the White House in the summer of 2026. Their 10 games each will feel secondary to the overarching narrative of the tournament (though maybe not in Canada as much), but some of the decisions made by first Sunil Gulati and then Carlos Cordeiro helped rebuild some pride and prestige in US Soccer that certainly has been lost from the Couva catastrophe in October, to the contentious US Soccer Presidential race in February and then the politicking to get this bid to be successful at all.

And even if FIFA turned over a new leaf after the FBI and CIA came knocking, the reality is that money still talks. This tournament has the potential to be a financial bonanza for FIFA, whose coffers are draining and for a President in Gianni Infantino who needs to fulfill some of his promises to the forces that ultimately determine his fate. But this announcement shouldn't be so much about FIFA and the politics that went behind the vote, it should be about soccer in North America, particularly in this country.

Soccer is a force culturally in this country more than it has ever been because of the rapid globalization of sports and demographic changes that are coming slowly, but surely. This is a country of 320 million people now, and millions more will be around eight years hence. And even if very little brings that entire melting pot together, one thing that can is patriotism. A World Cup in this country with soccer's 32 years of growth since 1994 can mean this sport hits the football exclusive stratosphere, especially if the team does well. For Canada, 10 games in Toronto, Montreal and Edmonton could mean the sport has its moment like the 1994 tournament did in this country. For Mexico, the team may finally have the chance to take advantage of circumstances not present in the last 40 years since they hosted the tournament in 1986.

On the pitch, US Soccer is at its lowest ebb since Mexico last hosted the tournament. But considering some of the young talent that has already blossomed, see Christian Pulisic, they will be in their primes in 2026, playing in front of packed stadiums rooting for them, with the potential to take this sport into a new era of popularity. It may never attain the cultural significance that football or baseball has, but it can sure take a step in that direction. And the presence of the tournament will cause further introspection into development at home and how US Soccer and its players will look potentially even more different come then too.

Nothing about Wednesday morning's decision was inevitable, which is something far too oft assumed in US Soccer since 1994 that everything would be. The men's game in this country is reeling a little after what happened in 2017, but the train is back on the tracks now in a big way.

A new generation will be have their 1994 moment and transform the sport in this country in the same way that those kids who were in the stands at the Rose Bowl, Giants Stadium et al had 24 years ago. They took the sport from the wilderness to where it is now. Those kids could take the sport to a new cultural place that most only dreamed of when wondering what soccer could become in the cultural and political powerhouse of the globe.

Soccer has been the US' sport of the future for decades, and still is in some ways in 2018. But with this World Cup in 2026, it will certainly be the sport of the present, and the future.