Actually, we have the Super Bowl, the World Series, the NBA Championship, the Stanley Cup and other smaller championships for less popular sports. And it's not that we don't play soccer here in the US, it's just that only kids play it, and then if they are a real athlete they generally move on to a real sport.
Yeah, sure. Go and tell rugby or australian football players about "real sports".
Or the russians about ice hockey. Do not ask the canadians.
BTW, you are sure the Stanley Cup is about sports?
2012
Ever asked a cricket fan what they think about baseball and the fact baseball calls their yearly series world series?
There is one, and only one game played world wide where the usa is real on top - thats baseball. Beside womans soccer.
Do not get me wrong - its no usa bashing. Sports is an exellent indicator about a nations mind set. Great nations tend to focus on theirself, even its not healthy.
It killed the roman empire as it pushed china in nearly 500 years of stagnation.
The really interesting and strange part about china is, that their cultural stagnation is somewhat related to the usa. Because until Columbus and his travel to america, china was the biggest and most sophisticated naval nation of the world.
Compared to the chinese ships the european ones of that time was small and primitive. Except one small difference: In that time portugal's king was fascinated by naval exploration and he had to push for that the maritime sailing developments which was needed to explore the african atlantic coast further down from north to south because the different winds & streams going east/west.
Just in the century before Columbus china's fleet hat reached Africa and established trading points along the whole asian coasts.
But instead to go on, which had finally for sure lead to chinese ships reaching europe and the exploring of america (many sources indicate that chinese scout ships already explored small parts of the american west coast), the chinese emporer and elites decided that china needs to seperate.
They burned their fleet, dropped any further development and exploration, canceld any trade beside the established land routes and dropped interaction to the surrounding nations to an mininum.
The reason is funny - its because china was the strongest and most developed nation on the world. Which was true. So, why interact with the barbarians? What can they add to someone who is ahead and superior? Will that not weaken the strong? That was, more or less, the official reason for next several centuries china degenerated.
Its btw interesting that you will not find much about that time and china's naval state in the wikipedia when it comes to the maritime history. Its complete focused around Columbus and the following Age of Discovery.
What has that to do with topic? Its an example how much nations are focused on theirself. And that since milleniums.
WE here - we are the first generation where that perhaps changes. Because the internet. Perhaps, because we already have a parted internet.
The world cup is the only real global sport event beside the olympics breaching the national borders world wide. At last that fact push football far above all other sports.