I couldn’t vote in the soccer poll, it already has more viewers (and more $ in TV contracts) than hockey.
I voted “no, it won’t,” in the soccer poll, but I was specifically thinking about the “Big 4” as not just being the sports themselves (American football, baseball, basketball, and hockey), but the top-tier North American professional leagues for those sports (NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL).
As @Maserschmidt notes, soccer’s fan base in the U.S. is probably bigger than hockey’s already, but MLS soccer (the top-tier North American men’s soccer league) is not nearly at the level of play of other leagues in other countries, and its TV contract is much smaller than the NHL’s. Fan interest in men’s soccer in the U.S. seems to be more in those top-tier foreign leagues than in MLS.
Yeah, I agree that non-US leagues make up more of the interest. Global streaming of MLS is worth about $250 million a year, which is more than I expected, but still not in the same league as the other leagues.
Well, one thing that muddies all of that is the presence of Canadian teams in the NHL, I’m not sure how to parse out the US part of that interest…
For anybody genuinely in doubt: American Football, Ice Hockey, Basketball and Baseball.
I don’t even know for sure which three are considered the biggest. This doesn’t appear to be an option, so didn’t vote.
My brother picked up the habit of social kissing from his ex, and i hated it while it lasted. (It faded after he’d been divorced for a while.) But i like social hugging.
I voted i do it more than most, because i do a lot of square dancing on the gay circuit, and hugging is so common there that people who don’t like it sometimes wear a badge to tell others they don’t want to be hugged.
But otherwise, i pretty much only initiate hugs with my immediate family.
Football, baseball, and basketball, with hockey a fairly distant fourth (at least in the US).
Of the top three, football is almost undoubtedly the biggest (as far as fan base, revenue, etc.). Which of the other two is in second place probably depends on the metric used.
My family is a big soccer family, I played until my teams, my brother played on his college team, my half brother played through high school, my niece and nephew (brother’s kids) play at a very high level as well. My brother earns enough money to take the kids to a few World Cup games each year.
Despite all that, I voted it wouldn’t break into the top 4 by 2040. As others have said, the current level of play combined with the lukewarm commercial interest is something of a chicken and the egg, but probably just as, if not more importantly, I figure that there’s going to be social/political pushback on the sport from various figures who consider it un-American in the most poisoned way.
I hope I’m wrong.
I wont answer public polls.
Big Four sports? Umm, Sportsball? 
and Hockey?
Thanks for info.
– which hockey? or did you mean both of them together? or are there not generally considered to be two of them?
Of course. Heaven forfend we become aware of where you fall on the Hug-O-Meter. 
mmm
I’m guessing you mean ice hockey and field hockey? If so, it’s ice hockey.
Not to mention air, tonsil, and all the other hockeys, including Unicycle hockey - Wikipedia.
Surely it’s horse hockey… /Sherman T. Potter
Isn’t that just polo?
Yup, that’s what I meant; only I couldn’t think of the term for field hockey.
I think MLS will have slightly overtaken NHL hockey by 2040.
Once again, auto racing is somehow left off the list of the top US sports. Only football is indisputably more popular.
Now I’m trying to imagine what one would have to do to win the Stanley Cup of Tonsil Hockey.
On favorite sport, I was torn. Generally I dislike sports, and almost clicked that, but decided I’d instead vote for what I disliked the least, in that I won’t actively leave the room to go do something else if it’s on at someone else’s place.
Baseball is totally out for me, because I find the pacing incredibly tedious. Hockey (which is the big local sport locally in town) is better paced, but it’s never worked for me so it’s out. Football is more interesting, but especially the games most likely to be on suffer from terrible pacing including commercial breaks, so also out. Leaving basketball, which has better pacing, fewer long breaks, and tends to be NOT go on for what feels like forever if I’m stuck watching out of politeness.
So that was my vote.