Boston's 30-year soccer blind spot

Why it matters: The World Cup arrives in Boston in just a few weeks.

• The city's search behavior suggests a large portion of residents could be watching soccer for essentially the first time, with very little awareness of what's happening on the field.

By the numbers: Action Network tracked 16 soccer-related search queries per capita across all 50 states from April 2021 to April 2026.

• Massachusetts scored the maximum confusion rating in every measured category.
• We don't know the rules, terminology or World Cup tournament format, but we came out at the top of the pack in our general curiosity about the game.

What they found: The most common searches from Massachusetts include how offsides works, how the World Cup format functions and why the sport is called football outside the states.

• Los Angeles, the most knowledgeable host city, ranked 17 times better on the index. Only Kansas City ranked worse than Boston.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to remove an incorrect reference to Kansas City not having an MLS presence. (It does.)