[Link]

I have the same happen to me. Located in NC everyone is Liverpool or Man U. People look at me like I have 3 eyes and a horn coming out of my head when I say CP.
I recently put a Palace Scarf up at a bar that is the Liverpool viewing bar. One of the owners stated that he is not a football fan so he would put my scarf up behind the bar where nobody will touch it. I have to suffer there everytime I visit my buddy (Liverpool fan).
I tell most people when they tell me who they follow that I am sure they like the Yankees for baseball, Patriots for American Football and Liverpool or Man. U. Anyone can jump on those bandwagons.
Lastly, the third team I hear about is Everton because of Tim Howard.

academics???? we don't have hipsters on the east coast, outside of NY or Boston. there are plenty of working class americans who like the sport.

most people like front runners - that's not an american thing.

Fortunately living in NYC we have a Crystal Palace contingent that goes to the Football Factory (Legends) for games (pre-covid, it's underground so basically a virus heaven).

Yes, there's only about a dozen of us there for any one match, and almost all English expats, but it's nice to have a group together.

BTW, soccer is becoming much more popular among the youth. The FIFA game makes that the case. As well as years of starting players out early in AYSO.

I'd say it is more popular than hockey now, and will continue to grow. Also, when the world cup comes here again it'll be huge.

I've often wondered what would happen if the owners made a big push to sign members of the U.S. mens national team. Given the team colors, location and mascot, there's a chance that having 3-6 U.S. players on the squad would attract more U.S. eyeballs. On the other hand, depending on the caliber of the players, it might erode support from the Holmesdale faithful.

Having played a year of schoolboy football in England, and four years of it at a U.S. university, I've been a fan for over 50 years. I made quite an effort to see World Cup games in the U.S. in 1994. Still, I didn't begin following the Prem, and Palace in particular, until 2015. I literally went through the process of choosing a squad, and it was the fervor of the Palace fans which won me over.

It's definitely more complex than "hipsters, leftists, and academics".

Having travelled around much of the USA for the past couple of decades, the growth of regular people being interested in the sport has been impressive, driven by several different factors including a level of dissatisfaction with the Big Three sports.

Here in Houston, support of football (MLS) is definitely growing in the Latino community, likely true in Miami, NYC, L.A. and the rest.

There's no doubt that the failure of the USMNT to qualify for the last World Cup was a massive blow, but I expect that to be a relatively small bump in the road.

While I think football (soccer) is unlikely to ever compete with basketball as a street sport (you don't see many "jumpers for goalposts" pick-up games), I think a bigger hurdle is that youth tuition is prohibitively expensive in the first place.

The game really needs to try and do something about that, a successful / interested USA would benefit everyone, hopefully support can improve for the kids.