To go along with what gutshot said, Kansas City went through alot of that, as did alot of teams. We played our early games in Arrowhead Stadium, which is was too small to really hold a soccer field. The stadium holds something like 70,000 people but when only 10,000 show up it gives the appearance of no one caring about soccer, but there were fans here. We had some successes which help build popularity also. The league in general made some good moves and kept building popularity steadily by smart moves and not over expanding too fast. Here, we had a core group of fans that constantly believed in the team and kept showing up to games and supporting them. That continued to grow and grow over time and more and more fans started becoming apparent. Broadcasting the games on local and sometimes national TV also helped. Getting TV deals let people who would probably not go to a soccer game watch the local team and turn them into fans as well. Also, again as gutshot said, soccer specific stadiums have been huge for the league's popularity. Seattle has a great stadium as well. It was designed as a multi-purpose stadium, but it had soccer in mind also which really helps. Your team really has a home instead of "borrowing" someone else's and that makes a big impact. After we moved out of Arrowhead, they started playing games at CommunityAmerica Ballpark for a few years, which is a baseball stadium for the T-Bones (a much smaller market professional baseball league). Finally last year, we moved into our new digs at LiveStrong Sporting Park which is a fantastic stadium.
Also, for some deeper US Soccer history and MLS history, you probably want to read a about Lamar Hunt as well. He was a major force in American Football, but he was also huge for soccer here.
- He founded the AFL, a competing league for the the NFL at the time
- Helped merge the AFL with the existing NFL to form the expanded NFL we have today
- Founder and owner of the Kansas City Chiefs (still owned by the Hunt family)
- Coined the term "Super Bowl"
- Co-founder of the North American Soccer League (which still plays)
- Minority founder in the NBA team Chicago Bulls
- Owned and built two MLS teams (Sporting Kansas City and Columbus Crew)
- Sold Sporting Kansas City, but then purchased FC Dallas (formally the Dallas Burn)
- Built one and helped finance another of the current MLS soccer specific stadiums
- Plus alot of other things I'm probably forgetting to mention.
He's in the Hall of Fame for three different sports in the US. The US Open Cup trophy was renamed to the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup because of his influence in US Soccer. The AFC championship trophy for American Football is called the Lamar Hunt Trophy. And when Kansas and Missouri play (or used to play) college football in the border war game, that trophy was also called the Lamar Hunt Trophy because of his push to have the game in Kansas City and make it a focus. Hell, Hunt even helped tennis along in the US for a time and tried to get an NHL license once or twice. He's a known name and people appreciate his efforts, but I think he has had alot more influence in US sports than most people think. He was a sports world beast for the US.
