Zak Keefer

zak.keefer@indystar.com

By 10 a.m., the line outside Chatham Tap began snaking its way down the street. Kickoff wasn't for six hours, but everyone in town knew this much: Fans foolish enough to show up at kickoff weren't getting a seat.

By 4 p.m., Peter Wilt delivered his pep talk, introduced the mayor to the masses and, eventually, retreated to his car. The president of Indiana's professional soccer team realized he needed to find another spot to watch the game. The viewing party he'd helped plan was too crowded.

And by sundown, after some 6,500 had stood and shouted and sweat on Mass Ave. in Downtown Indianapolis, they slogged their way home. The U.S. men's soccer team had ultimately succumbed to the Belgian blitzkrieg, falling agonizingly yet unforgettably in extra time, 2-1, in the second round of the World Cup.

The dream was dead. The ride was over.

And yet, it felt like a beginning.

For the sport, and for this city, Tuesday was a telling afternoon. Never has the collective affection for the game been as strong or as widespread. Never have thousands of fans stood in the sweltering sun for hours to watch soccer on video screens, soaring with every Tim Howard save (all 16 of them!) and slumping with every botched chance in front of the Belgium goal (Wondolowski, how could you?!). Never has the phrase "I believe that we will win" been barked with such zeal.

And never has soccer, so long a sporting afterthought in these parts — relegated to a niche status and beloved only by Saturday morning, ale-drinking diehards — unified the city so. Make no mistake: Indy embraced the game like never before.

Is Indianapolis a football town? Absolutely.

A basketball town? Always.

A soccer town? It has sure felt like it the past few weeks.

"Surreal," Wilt, the Indy Eleven president, called the moment he gazed out and saw the throngs of soccer supporters who filled Mass Ave. Tuesday afternoon. "But it's a sign of where the sport is going. It's not a fad sport. It's not a sport with a false foundation."

Wilt knows. Beginning in October 2012, he poured in three months of research to determine if Indianapolis could support a professional soccer outfit. Nine games into the Indy Eleven era, the results are indicative of the game's soaring popularity in this city: The team has sold out every home match and owns its league's largest attendance average by a considerable margin.

Enter the Americans' stirring run into the knockout round of the World Cup. Soccer became hip like never before.

The game took center stage in Indianapolis and nationwide. Television ratings soared — ESPN's U.S.-Belgium broadcast Tuesday was its highest-ever for a World Cup game — and exceeded that of the World Series and NBA Finals. Indianapolis, which according to Nielsen ratings finished 22nd in the country in viewing for the U.S.-Belgium game, registered a 9.3 rating, well ahead of Midwest counterparts Louisville (8.3), Detroit (8.3) and St. Louis (8.2).

Overall, Indianapolis was tied for 41st in the country in World Cup viewership, according to statistics provided by ESPN.

Watch parties, like the ones on Mass Ave. and in Carmel, dotted the country, seas of red, white and blue celebrating the sport with a style typically reserved for European juggernauts.

"Even a few years ago, I couldn't have ever imagined something like that," said Andrew Retz, vice president of the Indy chapter of the soccer fan group American Outlaws. "You just don't normally see that sort of thing in this town.

"I can't even imagine if we'd tied it up (in extra time). It'd have been pure madness."

According to FIFA, more than 200,000 tickets to the tournament were purchased by Americans, second-most in the world to only host Brazil. Colts quarterback Andrew Luck, an admitted soccer nut who made the trip to Brazil, was one of them.

There was no question, regardless of a U.S. win or loss Tuesday: Soccer is hot right now in the states. The question we're left with: Now that the Americans are headed home, how long until it cools?

Wilt contends it is here to stay, especially in Indianapolis. He notes a flurry of factors at play here, each of which helped shape his decision to help lure pro soccer back to this city after three franchises previously came and flopped: A growing ethnic population, a booming youth soccer base and a millennial crowd that religiously follows the English Premier League.

"Soccer is becoming part of people's lifestyles," he said.

Daniel Jones' Mass Ave. soccer haven, Chatham Tap, offers proof. His bar is routinely filled by breakfast time on Saturdays, where patrons guzzle craft beer and watch EPL games on big screen TVs. With soccer seeping out into the mainstream in the past few weeks, Chatham became the capital of Indy's soccer obsession.

"We were full by noon Tuesday, and had to turn away fans by 2," Jones said. "We opened seven years ago, and I never thought something like this would have been possible.

"All those people on Mass Ave.? What a sight to see."

One of Chatham's patrons Tuesday was Mayor Greg Ballard, who after speaking to the crowd found a table saved for him. He stayed for every last minute of the U.S. heartbreaker.

In the coming months and years, the surest local gauge of whether soccer has truly arrived will be Wilt's Eleven. Will they continue to fill their stands in the fall, after the Colts return to work? Will their season-ticket sales take a hit if the team (currently 0-5-4 in league play) does not produce on the field?

It all, of course, remains to be seen. Soccer, like the Olympics, has a tendency to fade from the American sports conscious when not in session. But the country saw progress over the past few weeks. So did Indianapolis.

Tuesday was 11 months to the day the city hosted an exhibition between foreign powers Chelsea and Inter Milan. A crowd of 41,983 flocked to Lucas Oil Stadium that night.

A flash in the pan, or another sign of a soccer-starved city?

"That, to me, was an indicator that Indianapolis was turning into a soccer town," Wilt said. "Tuesday verified it."

Call Star reporter Zak Keefer at (317) 444-6134 and follow him on Twitter: @zkeefer.