Will Obama Boost Soccer?

Joe Roth, the producer of Tim Burton’s upcoming Alice in Wonderland, and who joined David Geffen, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg in organizing Obama’s first major Hollywood fundraiser, has spotted a trend. “If you took a map of America where Obama is strongest and laid it over a map of where soccer has its biggest appeal, you’d see an incredible overlap,” he told LA Times blogger Patrick Goldstein. “The blue states on both coasts are very soccer friendly as well as huge areas of support for Obama, where as the center of the country is full of people who are the enemies of soccer and Obama—white, 50-and-over guys who listen to talk radio and only care about football or basketball.” Roth, owner of the Seattle Sounders FC soccer team, hopes Obama in the White House will boost soccer into the big league.