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Soccer is one of those sports that pulls in a universal audience in terms of demographics.

I mean, sports are big, big, big business.

Soccer is the most widely played sport in the U.S.

While American football is very structured and linear and static - where everyone lines up, and there's a burst, and it happens - soccer is like the cosmos. It's like constellations. It's bodies moving in space. It's a very spherical game.

The more people who come from abroad who played soccer and are brought up playing it and watching it, then come over to America and bring what they know and what they play, that's how the sport will grow.

Contrary to popular belief, I don't spend a whole lot of time following soccer. But as I have traveled around the world to better understand global development and health, I've learned that soccer is truly universal. No matter where I go, that's what kids are playing. That's what people are talking about.

Soccer is a great game, and the rich variety of styles and passions that come with being truly global makes the World Cup a nonpareil event in the universe of competitive sport.

Major sports are major parts of society. It's not anomalous to have people who love sports come from other parts of that society.

And of course in America you've got American football and baseball and all those other ball games, soccer has become a little niche that the women have kind of filled.