Report: People Talking About Soccer, But There’s No World Cup This Year So It Must Be Something Else

According to a report released Friday, which noted a considerable increase in the number of people talking about soccer throughout the United States, this is not the year of a World Cup, so there must be something else going on. "Our research definitely shows a measurable increase in soccer-related conversations, Facebook updates, and tweets, which would be a perfectly natural occurrence around the time of a World Cup. However, that’s still two years away, so we’re really stumped," said Dr. Galen Clavio, a professor of sports communication at Indiana University, adding that hours of research also affirmed the increased soccer talk is not at all related to the upcoming London Olympics. "The current leading theory is that one of the famous soccer guys might have died, but the chatter only seems to be increasing rather than diminishing over time." Stating that they hope to have a definite answer within the coming week, researchers said there remains a strong likelihood that Americans were simply confusing soccer and hockey.