About this Event
Please join us for the Spring 2026 series "Soccer: The Beautiful Game" at the German Historical Institute Washington.
Brian D. Bunk: Popularizing Soccer - Soccer in the United States before 1950: The First Golden Age?
By some measures soccer is incredibly popular in the United States. Millions of kids and adults join teams, play soccer video games and stream matches from around the planet. Major League Soccer and the National Women’s Soccer League are growing professional competitions. The US Women’s National Team remains one of the best in the world, and the men’s squad is improving. Are we living in the golden age of US soccer? Looking back to soccer’s earlier history can help answer the question. Such an examination reveals that soccer’s development in the US at times matched and even exceeded that of other countries. The talk explores how and why the sport succeeded in its early stages and discusses some of the reasons for its failures.
Brian D. Bunk is a Senior Lecturer II in the History Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst whose research focuses on the history of soccer in the United States. He has published Beyond the Field. How Soccer Built Community in the United States (2025) and From Football to Soccer: The Early History of the Beautiful Game in the United States (2021). Both with the University of Illinois Press. His latest book The Shortest History of Soccer is set to appear in 2026 with The Experiment Publishing.
About the Spring 2026 Lecture Series "Soccer: The Beautiful Game" at the German Historical Institute Washington:
Soccer, the world’s most popular sport, unites people across continents, cultures, and languages. For over a century, the game and its institutions have been inherently global in nature, with clubs, leagues, national teams, and tournaments drawing people together from around the world, while local aspects such as fan culture have contributed significantly to soccer’s global success. The (hi)story of the “beautiful game,” however, is not only a positive one. Corruption, scandals, and discrimination have plagued the sport since its early beginnings and form a significant part of the game’s story.
On the occasion of this summer’s men’s soccer World Cup, hosted across Mexico, Canada, and the United States, the GHI Washington’s 2026 Spring Lecture Series, “Soccer: The Beautiful Game,” will explore the sport’s impact from multiple perspectives: popularizing soccer, globalizing soccer, and paying for soccer. The series will feature leading scholars and seasoned practitioners offering diverse insights into the sport’s popularity, globality, and financial aspects.
Doors will open at 5:30 pm and will close promptly at 6:00 pm with the beginning of the lecture. Access to the lecture after doors close will be at descretion of the GHI. Registration does not guarantee access once event capacity is reached.
The lecture will be recorded and made available for viewing.
Organized by by Sarah Beringer, Andreas Greiner, and Ulrike von Hirschhausen in cooperation with the .
Please be aware that this event or conference, or a portion of it, could be live-streamed to registered participants watching remotely via ZOOM or a similar platform, or could be videorecorded for publication. By participating in-person, you understand that it is possible that you could be seen by registered participants watching the stream, that your comments may be seen/heard by participants watching the stream, and that a recording of the live stream could be made available on a video sharing service such Vimeo.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
German Historical Institute, 1607 New Hampshire Ave NW, Washington, D.C, United States
USD 0.00
