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While soccer may never really catch on in America as more than a sport watched by parents seeing their children play, it has produced numbers that are not too bad considering the lack of interest in the U.S.

Recent World Cups are hard to compare with as some of them, like the last games in Japan and South Korea, were on such time zone differences that it would be hard to measure against them.

In the case of the 1998 games in France, that probably gives a better look at what is happening today.

The ABC coverage of the World Cup in France of 1998 was watched by just a little more people than the 2.2% of U.S. households that ABC received this year. One of the problems though is that this time around there were no U.S. games in the mix, whereas in France there was one U.S. game to watch.

ESPN2, on the other hand, is thrilled with their audience participation as they have a 1.4% of cable TV households which is over double the viewers they had in 1998 which was at 0.6%.

ESPN senior vice president Artie Bulgrin said "I'm amazed at the interest."

In reality I thought the numbers would be a little better than this as the Hispanic population in the U.S. is growing so quickly. With that in mind, it could be a more popular sport in the U.S., but not for a long time. Now it seems that it will be a niche market that has enough interest to be worth broadcasting and not much more than that for a while.