> The United States is not exactly lacking in athletic prowess, as our women’s team and our success in other sports show.

That's one of the answers: it's seen as a "women's" sport mostly. In school boys play football and girls play soccer in rough general terms. And because football, basketball, baseball is already there there just isn't much demand for another "ball" sport to care about so to speak.

This is hilarious because we think the same about any sport that isn't soccer (football) in much of Latin America: "basketball / baseball is what girls play" is the tagline folks said growing up

It's funny, at Cornell I think the men play soccer better than the woman unequivocally but at Ithaca College the men play a very physical but stupid game whereas the women play a much smarter game when it comes to controlling the space.

A men's and women's sport that can be played with the same facilities is an economic plus -- college soccer is a great way to have fun supporting your school. It's a very different situation than field hockey, which is almost exclusively a woman's sport in the US although it is a huge men's sport in India and many other countries.

> That's one of the answers: it's seen as a "women's" sport mostly. In school boys play football and girls play soccer in rough general terms.

I’ve never heard that, in fact there are more boys who play in America than girls.