It looks like there’s a new third-most popular sport behind baseball and football in America, and it’s not professional basketball.

According to Yahoo! Sports, Major League Soccer attendance rose last year from 10,287 people per game to 17,810 people per game. As for the NBA, last year the average attendance per game was 17,319 fans. Overall, the NBA brought in 21.3 million people to its stadiums, but the NBA also plays 82 games in the regular season while the MLS only has 34 games.

The average attendance statistic surprises a lot of UNC Wilmington students, especially sophomore and basketball enthusiast Griffin Templeton.

“It is a very surprising statistic for me considering I watch a lot of basketball, play a lot of basketball and all of my friends keep up with basketball,” Templeton said. “I don’t know a whole lot of people that watch soccer games and go to them. I know internationally that soccer is the most popular sport in the world, but here in the U.S., I didn’t think that basketball would get surpassed by soccer.”

As for soccer supporters, this statistic is something to be proud of. Stephen Owen is a junior at UNCW and a soccer fan.

“It’s good for soccer here in America. Having more people attend is definitely better for the sport,” Owen said. “Soccer has been getting better coverage from ESPN, which is really helping out. When ESPN covered the World Cup last year, Americans watched Landon Donovan score that game-winning goal against Algeria. I think it was huge when that happened, because it shed a little more light on the sport as a whole for us here in the United States.”

A reason for the increase in MLS popularity could be the USA World Cup run in 2010, as Owen referenced. Two new teams were added to the league last year: Vancouver and Portland. Then, Kansas City built a new stadium that allows for greater capacity. The MLS is also the 10th-most attended soccer league in the world ahead of the Scottish Premier League, so it’s getting recognition worldwide too.

Templeton blamed differences in amount of games for the lower NBA numbers. “Eighty-two games in a regular season for the NBA are too much, I think. I guess the feeling that it’s all right to lose a couple of games hurts the sport,” he said. “I think shortening the season will improve attendance because the players will be favoring the games more, in my opinion, and probably bring more entertainment to the game itself by playing a little bit harder. The NBA players don’t take an 82 game season as serious as they should be.”

Owen agrees with this concept, but he gave more perspective from the soccer angle. “It’s hard for soccer players to play that many regular season games,” he said. “But I think it would bring in more fans if the MLS added more regular season games like making it 40, instead of 34.”

As for basketball and soccer at UNCW, there is a huge difference in attendance. Trask Coliseum brought in 3,751 people per game last year, while the UNCW Soccer Stadium can only hold up to 700 people in the bleachers, according to UNCWSports.com.

Back at the professional level, popularity for soccer is rising and with the NBA lockout lingering around, it might stay that way. For soccer fans like Owen, the statistic gives them hope that soccer has a chance to be a top sport in the United States.