As the World Cup begins in Germany today, the majority of the world stops what they’re doing to watch. Out of the world’s 6.5 billion people, 5 billion will watch. The ad in my ESPN the Magazine claims: “It closes the shops, closes the schools, closes a city, stops a war, fuels a nation, breaks the borders, builds a hero, crushes a dream, answers a prayer, and changes the world.” No one can deny this is the biggest sporting event in the world.

This is bigger than the Olympics and it’s bigger than the Super Bowl. So why is America the one country that still doesn’t get up for it like others do? I don’t see shops closed around where I live and I don’t see it fueling my nation. Local sports radio shows are talking more about the NBA Finals and regular season games of Major League Baseball than they are about the World Cup.

Maybe Americans are being snobby or maybe we’re just too stubborn to open our minds to it. Or maybe Americans are just behind the times and we’re only now beginning to catch up to the rest of the world in our love of the game. I’d venture to say that the U.S. is more interested now in the world’s biggest sport than it ever has been. But the country is still in the minority with most of its citizens still apathetic to the event.

One point to consider is that Americans cherish their national sports. Baseball, football (American football, that is), and basketball are passed down from father to son and generation to generation. We still hold up Babe Ruth and George Halas as heroes of their games decades later. This country doesn’t have a history with soccer so there’s nothing to pass down. There are simply too many other sports to compete with in this country.

Anyone who’s traveled outside the U.S. can tell you that when an American starts to talk sports with the locals of most other countries, many times he is met with resentment. Our first crime is that we don’t follow soccer like we should and next in line is the audacity we have to call our sport football. The players’ feet rarely make contact with the ball in our football. We may be the only country who has come up with another word for the sport: soccer.

Add to these crimes some of the detractors of our sports to an international observer: steroids in American sports, commercials interrupting the games, excessive time-outs, padding and equipment of certain sports, and the perceived lack of athleticism and effort of the players. This list is not all-inclusive by any means and doesn’t even include the obvious: attitudes towards our country outside the world of sports aren’t on a high right now. The U.S. team at the World Cup is the only one who cannot put its county’s flag on its bus out of fear.

Despite all of these things, there is an undeniable shift in the world’s interest in our games. Take a look at an MLB, NBA, or NHL roster and you’ll see more names you can’t pronounce than the other way around. This doesn’t happen without the international community embracing our sports and having its youth watch from afar. In fact, some might say the rest of the world has caught up to us in our own sports. Take a look at the last US Olympic Basketball team or the failures of the US team in the World Baseball Classic. Americans will come to the defense of those teams and say that the American athletes didn’t try as hard in those events because they were saving themselves for the upcoming seasons back home, but a loss is a loss is a loss.

On the flip side, have we caught up with the rest of the world in football? There, I said it: football. The U.S. team coming in to this year’s World Cup is ranked fifth which leads me to believe we’re getting close. So perhaps football is finally catching on in this country. Now all that’s left is for us to start paying attention.