RIP WUSA

[Occhidiangela]

A few weeks back, I read the news that the ladies professional soccer league folded. For one reason or another, they could not keep the revenue stream up. What a pity, but no surprise. Women's professional basketball lost a league, Nancy Lieberman's league, a few years back, and it has taken the backing of the NBA, and affiliation with the NBA for the WNBA to keep going. Good on them! (I am a bit of a Sue Byrd fan, but some of that has to do with her being a UConn player when on Shae Ralph and Svetlana Ambrosimova's great teams, and her own superior play versus Tennessee in a championship game.)

With the Women's World Cup going on now, that puts Women's professional Soccer at a high level in an odd situation -- and quite a few of the stars on the other countrie's teams played in our league -- but I supose that so long as the College and Cup teams exist, the game will go on. I certainly hope so.

The ladies are in good company, at the least.

The NASL (a U.S. men's soccer league) died a rather horrible death (the Chicago Sting, the Washington Diplomats, the New York Cosmos, et al) back in the lat 1970's, bringing that version of American professional soccer back down to earth. They were up against Mr October and The Steel Curtain and America's Team, not to mention Dr J! and Jimmy Connors and Bjorn Borg. If star power like Franz Beckenbauer, Pele, and Gerd Moeller can't keep the stands full, no-names won't either. (See golf tournaments nowadays where there is no Tiger Woods, no Sergio Garcia. TV Ratings plummet.) If ya can't fill the seats, and if ya can't get the TV revenues, it's over.

There is a bigger issue to resolve.

Soccer is a tough sell in the US, though it has certainly gotten some boosts from the US World Cup hosting ('94?) and the fact of the American men's league still surviving, as well as some US players playing and starting on good European teams. Maybe in 10 years, the US soccer league will be able to do for WUSA's successors what NBA did for the WNBA.

For the future Mia Hamm's of this country, I hope so.

But, this brings up a few points about women's professional sports.

Tennis and golf: ladies versus ladies, and some hard decisions on marketing. It works. But those are country club sports, sadly.

Swimming: ladies vs ladies, and no professional leagues.

Soccer. Great sport, good team sport. Me, I love it.

Mia Hamm grew up playing soccer, and even FOOTBALL, against boys. (Check the SI article on her age 12 time on a boys football team. They have a shot of her in pads.) She had to cut her sports teeth against the higher grade competition. Will more and better women's leagues make for better competition, or lower the bar? I have no idea, but I hope the bar will raise.

Lower the bar? Occhi, what are you talking about.

Well, have you ever seen women's World Cup Soccer? I have, and I ain't all that impressed.

I hate to say this, since I like soccer a lot, I support women's sports, (I used to announce games for my daughter's fast pitch softball team) but the entertainment value, for the soccer fan, leaves something to be desired.

1. Women don't seem to be great soccer fans, nor great fans of women's soccer. Take away the soccer moms who are there to see their kids, and who is left to watch professional soccer? Guys? Are women in Europe big soccer fans, or is that mostly a guy thing?

2. The ball handling, passing and from what I have seen in this and the last World Cup, the attack are substandard in comparison to the men. Once you've watched The World Cup, and seen The Real Deal, and you saw the Dutch in 98, or the Brazilians for the past 40 years, or even watched Juventus versus Inter Milan in a 2-2 tie, you know the difference.

I was watching Australia / China the other day. (I saw Nigeria versus someone, forget, it was late, and that was not such a hot game. Men's world cup has downers too.) The game simply was not played at a very high level, although I liked the Chinese attack on their breakaways and the effort expended was obvious for both teams. They weren't holding back at all.

"For women" it was good, but to keep the interest of the soccer fan, you need to produce high level performances.

May I ask out international Lurkers who like soccer the following:

What would induce you to watch, or not watch, women's soccer?

Did the 1999 Women's Australian soccer team really have it right and know the audience better than the pundits? (Their calendar is an infamous, if modest, example of the Jan Stephenson/Anna Kournikova approach.)

Is women's soccer big in Europe? In Australia? In China? I don't imagine it is big in the Islamic world, but some African countries have World Cup teams. Norway won in 1995, as I recall. Is women's soccer big news in Norway?

I have no sense of that, though I know that there are plenty of promos in this country for Women's World Cup. (Eh, we are hosting it, so that should be no surprise.)

[Moldran]

A soccer (football ! ;p) fan from Germany here.

6:1 vs Argentinia, our girls are playing a nice tourney so far, hehe ;)

At first, you have to realize one thing: European soccer (at least huge parts of it) works quite different from any sport in the US and from any other sport in Europe. It is not easy to explain.
Soccer in Europe has alot to do with tradition and social contexts. The actual performance at the sport is often of secondary interest.
For example, a third-league club can easily have a larger fanbase than a first-league one.

No matter how good women were at soccer in Germany, it would never be a "big thing". It simply lacks the necessary "social roots" to attract a really huge fanbase.

People just don´t identify with women´s teams. They identify with the traditional soccer clubs, usualy regardless of the team´s performance.

There are female soccer fans in Europe, but they are few. All in all, it really is a "guy thing". In Germany, the quote of females in the stadiums is probably somewhere around 5% or less.
I have no statistic at hand, but that is my personal impression (I usualy see about 2-3 matches per month live).
Women´s teams do not have any "real fans" at all, as far as I can tell. Neither male nor female ones. Even B teams of traditional clubs sometimes have more fans than women´s teams :)

Moldran

[Occhidiangela]

Watched most of the game last night, it was a bit rough, Hamm blew a penalty kick, Norwegian goalkeeper played a very solid game, but the score does not reflect how much time the ball spent in the Norwegian end of the field: most of the game.

A decent showing, but both teams looked a little rough around the edges.

[Moldran]

So it will be USA:Germany in the semi-final, assuming we beat Russia, which should not be too hard. Should be an interesting match. My tip is the final will be China:Germany ;p

Moldran

[Guest]

The truth is its opperating costs are low. Even its very best players make low wages for a proffesional sport. I forget the numbrers but I am thinking that no one last year made over 100k. I do respect the players because it is so clear they all love to play the game.

It now looks like new investors may save the league. With its relatively low costs it is probably a good idea for sports apearal companies to keep it running just as way to encourage girls to be atheletic.


On a side note its ironic that the league failed the same year Bend It Like Becham wasa released.

[Occhidiangela]

That US will beat Germany. :)

Yeah, I know, "big spender." :P

[Moldran]

7:1 ! Beware ! ;)

[Nystul]

There are so many angles to approach this one from that I'm not sure what to say. My main thought is that soccer in the United States as a Big Thing is very, very young. Some thought that the '94 Cup would have some instant effect, but I think they were expecting a 50 year process to take 5 years (or 5 months). The direct effect of that World Cup was that it spurred the ground roots of soccer in the U.S. When I grew up, Little League meant baseball and only baseball. Now Little League baseball is something you watch Japan play on TV and Little League in the U.S. means soccer. But the first big generation of little league soccer kids isn't even old enough to play pro ball yet. How many fans really exist in the older generations? Give it 15 or 20 years and if soccer is still one of the biggest youth sports, it may be one of the biggest prep, college, and pro sports as well.

Now if soccer continues on that track, it eventually could become one of those sports that Americans talk about in sports bars and at business meetings. Since so many girls play, could it also eventually have a large female fan base? I'm not sure on that. But that is what it will take for a women's league to really thrive. Well, the Kournikova approach might work too.

Does having the lower bar on the international level raise the bar within the nation? Americans love to be a winner. Mia Hamm is a bigger star than any male soccer player in the U.S. because of her domination of international opponents. Does that spark more interest in the women's game, or ultimately will it just result in American sports fans (mostly men, at least for now) treating the women's sport as B level play just like their European counterparts do?

[Moldran]

Occhi goes ring-hunting ;p

Too bad you didn´t get that penalty (it was very clear - I wonder where the referree was looking at in that situation). 3:0 was a bit high in the end. Our midfield and forwards didn´t play well together.
But USA´s offense was not very good, either (and the German keeper played one hell of a match)... only kick´n rush, no combinations, hardly any surprising passes. All in all, nice match.

[Occhidiangela]

Stunk versus Norway: In their half all day, one score.

So, even though I did not get to see the game, I suspect USA offense was once again shooting wide or badly, or blowing good feeds. Hamm gave a perfect feed at 17 yards versus Norway, shot was complete mess up.

Too bad it had to end, but a hearty Congrats to Germany. Winning versus this team is no small achievement. US Defense was quite good this tournament. Getting that one-nil lead must have been a huge advantage.

Well done to the football (fussball?) ladies of Germany/ I guess I need to keep an eye out for a +1 Mana Ring. :)