In the Big Ten:
Edit: outside of the Big Ten, I’d forgotten about Georgia Tech, in Atlanta, and Vanderbilt, in Nashville.
USC and UCLA chased out the pro teams from LA (insert joke about USC being a pro team here). 
And Tempe, where Arizona State is located, is only 10 miles from downtown Phoenix (though the Cardinals are likely much more followed than Arizona State).
As mentioned, Georgia Tech is downtown Atlanta, though the Georgia Bulldogs, an hour away are much more followed - and FAR more followed than the Atlanta Falcons (the Falcons are likely more followed than GTech though).
Anyway, the point being that when the MLS team comes to Atlanta in 2017, while there is tons of excitement and lots of season ticket deposits purchased, I bet that Atlanta sports radio will basically ignore it in favor of the Dawgs and, to a lesser extent, the Falcons (likely saying really dumb stuff like how horrible it is that the new stadium is opening to a soccer game rather than a football game).
There are lots of P5 teams located right by Pro Football towns. Washington is in Seattle. Cal and Stanford are in San Francisco. Boulder is 30 miles from Denver. Michigan is 20 miles from Detroit.
Indiana is in Bloomington, 40 miles from Indianapolis. Ann Arbor (Michigan) and Detroit are even closer. There’s also Lawrence, KS (Kansas University) and Kansas City.
Back on the original topic, St. Louis has a long history of high school and college soccer, but when it comes to pro soccer, the only thing the fans seem to turn out for is the pinball-style indoor game. Even at that, it’s basically the same 15,000 people each time. The sportstalk hosts seem a lot more interested in soccer than the proletariat.
That’s likely because there isn’t a top level pro team in St. Louis, though the city is trying to corral an MLS side. There is one pro team, but its in the Division 3 USL. Minor league side, associated with the MLS’s Chicago Fire.
I think a big part of the problem is also the perception that MLS teams just aren’t as good as the top level European football teams. As long as this gap in talent exists, soccer in general and MLS in particular are is going to have trouble becoming a major sport.
I think it’s just something that people are just going to have to used to and I think it’s already been starting. I know I live in the South, but it already seems more relevant than the NHL ever did here (and we had a team in Atlanta for a few years even).
I mean, after all, College Football teams aren’t as good as NFL teams (yes, even the worst NFL teams), but people watch them in spades.
Sure, but in any of these examples, save possibly UGA/Falcons pay more attention to the college team than the pro team? I’d find it extremely hard to believe that Washington’s football team is more popular/gets more coverage than the Seahawks, for example, or that Indiana gets more love than the Colts.
But I totally agree that soccer is catching up on the NHL fast. My guess is that soccer is much more relatable to the majority of the country than hockey, if only due to climate. There are youth hockey leagues in Texas, but they tend to be the province of upper-middle class kids who have the money and wherewithal to go to practices and games at the tiny handful of ice rinks in the area.
By comparison, any football field can be very easily repurposed as a soccer field with new paint and a pair of goals, and practicing/pick up games don’t even need that really. I never was a soccer player in any kind of way, but I’ve at least played in a couple dozen pick-up soccer games in my youth, which I can’t say about hockey.
I predict that within the next decade or two, soccer will be poised to be pushing baseball pretty hard, and potentially football as well, if the brain injury stuff ends up as damning as I expect it will. I don’t believe for a minute that it’ll be as popular as the NFL is now, or even the NBA, but I can easily buy that it’ll become the 4th major sport, and even speculate that it could displace baseball as #3 by virtue of sucking some football and baseball fans away.
Baseball is still #2, FWIW ;). It makes loads more money than basketball. For instance, I can easily see the MLS team in Atlanta overtake the Hawks (well, if they keep playing as well as they did this year, maybe not), but I can’t see them overtake the Braves anytime soon (even as the Braves move to the suburbs).
St. Louis had the Stars, a founding team of the NPSL/NASL, for ten seasons. Their best season averaged just below 9,800 fans per game (although they didn’t fold, like many other NASL franchises.) They eventually played their home games at a Division III college field and finally moved to Anaheim.
By contrast, when the indoor Steamers arrived in 1979, they averaged more than 14,000.