Youth soccer is widespread because it's the easiest sport to form. There's no need for a diamond to be carved out of a field or hoops to be erected, no need to purchase lots of equipment. All that's needed for it to be played is an empty field and a ball. It's cheap, low-maintainence and since it involves two of the most basic activities children enjoy -- running and kicking -- it requires very little instruction or explanation before a kid can be playing.
But that doesn't mean it's popular. Youth soccer is largely the domain of white suburban residents --where there's a near-phobia of unorganzed activity and soccer is often viewed by helicopter parents as a less dangerous sport than football, basketball, baseball or hockey -- and doesn't have nearly the appeal in inner cities (Mexican and Central American populations being something of an exception to that) or in rural areas.
Ask yourself this: For every organized youth soccer league that exists, how many kids are regularly playing basketball or football in unorganized settings on a regular basis in the park or with a group of friends in their backyard?
Far and away most kids who play soccer lose interest by the time they reach their teens, but it has nothing to do with the quality or lack of quality in a U.S. professional league. That's the effect, not the cause. The cause of the lack of interest -- and the subsequent reason there's not a good pro league in the States -- is that the sport simply isn't well-suited to the American temperament: it doesn't fit well on a TV screen, it's too low-scoring, there seems to us to be very long periods where nothing happens. To an American, to say it simply, the game is boring. Soccer has never been able to overcome that in America, even though proponents of the sport have been saying for 50 years or more how it's about to catch on here.
It won't catch on the U.S., though. It's just not a sport for the American nature, just as our own version of football doesn't fit well with the likes and dislikes of many other parts of the world.
