It has nothing to do with chauvinism or pity. If she was a boy of equal ability she would never have even been looked at. Sorry for anyone who can't comprehend that. And I would argue that there is just as much women's "soccer culture" in the US as anywhere else. The U.S. is four times the size of Germany. In terms of quantity definitely. In terms of quality or per capita no. Football fans in Germany are fans of the professional and international game. Soccer fans in the States are fans of their kids. The point we're trying to make is that a general "soccer culture" is not the determining factor when it comes to women's soccer attendance. I was actually reading a paper on this in Scotland earlier today. There are many factors which affect attendance and culture is one the main ones.
I disagree. You are just repeating 20 year old stereotypes about Americans and soccer if you believe we only care about our kids playing youth soccer. American soccer fans watch MLS, European leagues (the English Premier League regularly outdraws MLS in television viewership), and international tournaments in big numbers - which explains why coverage of these leagues and tourneys has grown over the past two decades (broadcasters here have deals for leagues in Spain, England, Scotland, France, Germany, Italy, Australia, Japan, Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico; and for the Europa League, Champions League, Copa Libertadores, Club World Cup, Confederations Cup, in addition to the men's and women's World Cups). And don't fall into the trap of thinking that every German is a soccer fan - much less a sports fan - just like in America, where we have tons of pro sports leagues but not everyone is an American football or basketball fan. Soccer culture: myriad youth leagues, high school leagues, college leagues, amateur leagues, semi-pro leagues, the only nation to twice attempt a fully pro women's league. That's on top of having a good men's national team and a great women's national team. Dozens of American women play for international national teams, dozens more play for international club teams. There really isn't an argument to be made that there isn't a significant soccer culture, or even a soccer culture at all here. It doesn't have to be the number one sport. We don't have to have 3 World Cup titles (until this past cycle, Spain had exactly zero). Hope Solo herself is a product of American soccer culture, whether she wants to admit it or not. I would argue income, location, and advertising are all bigger factors when it comes to attendance numbers for women's (or men's) soccer. How do you explain the lack of attendance for Brazilian, English, and Italian women's leagues? "Soccer culture" is not, and will not, be an impediment to the growth of a women's pro league here.
What, you mean train a few times a week with some of the better footballers in her region? You do know how acadamies work right . There not all filled with hand picked Neymar, Goetze, etc.... level talents, all primed to go into the first team as soon as they hit 18. All she would have had to deal with is training sessions that tend to have major emphasis on the technical and tactical aspects of coaching. If Popp's one of the best young females in the world, I'm sure she would have been good enough to play in a few five a side matches, join in on various drills, while taking down a few notes. Oh wait, I forgot to comprehend the feminine aspect to Popp, which creates too much of a handicap for her to do all that strenuous hard labour . Like I said before, she wasn't at the La Masia, tasked with full matches, versus the nations most elite boys on a full time basis . She was simply good enough to take advantage of the impressive opportunity that became available to her, and the boys didn't mind either so.....
Because the Soccer cultures do not automatcily (or even easy) turn to into interest for Womnes Soccer, but it is a resources that may be used. It may not be but unless women soccer have a stint in growth internationally it will be. When the countries mentioned finally is able to get some interst for the Womens game it will be enough for them to get a tenth ot the Soccer interested public to follow women's soccer to have women leauges which can rival MLS in resources. To reach the same result in US you would have to tap pretty much 100% of the Soccer intersted public or create a new public, bout much harder to do. But that is long therm, at least 10-20 years in the future.
Thanks for the info on professional academies Batfink. Not sure if you're familiar with MLS ones but I've spent time in them in England, Spain and Holland and the difference in level of talent and play between young men and women is absolutely enormous.
stereotypes tend to have some truth attached to them. and in spite of the growth of the game in the u.s., there is some truth, i think, in this one. if we're talking about the difference between what solo felt was passion for women's pro soccer in sweden vs the u.s., it's hard to compare the passion of the two countries without taking into account the fact that the u.s. has about 300 million people, while sweden has about 9 million. if we had similar passion for the game, even with those other sports, we'd have little problem keeping a modest women's pro league alive. i still think that we love to see our youth run and kick the ball about - recreationally. but there is little "passion for the game and its skill, niceties, intricacies and professional growth in the u.s. very little.
Yeah, I'm not disputing the gap between men and women's youth football. I'm trying to highlight that an elite female like Popp, who's grown within a highly developed women's football nation like Germany's, can make fantastic use of the highly developed professional systems of development for boys, if given the correct opportunities to do so. By training with Shalke 04's youth team for short periods of time, Popp went on to absolutely dominate the U-20 WWC, with the best goal return ever seen by a female player at that particular age group tournament too. I doubt Popp was seriously hoping to play men's Bundesliga , and I also doubt Shalke 04 would have ever considered taking her on board full time either, but the small opportunity to learn alongside elite males at such a progressive age, never hurt her, or the boys she met along the way. Like I said before, it wasn't Spain, or any other major men's footballing nation where this took place, because the women's systems of player development within many of those nations is still way below that of a nation like Germany. Alexandra Popp's story though, is just a higher level/profile tale, of something which has been taking place in football circles for quite some time now.
This is basically what I've been saying: soccer culture isn't the be all end all of attendance figures as those women's leagues I've mentioned have seen. Of course it can be tapped into (all sports tap into their sporting culture when selling their leagues), but it doesn't necessarily mean people will turn out, which has been the case with women's sports. When people assume women's soccer in the US can't grow because we're not as crazy about the sport as Brazil or Italy or England, I just tell them to look at the attendance figures for those leagues compared to WPS or WUSA for evidence to the contrary. This is problematic because you are skipping the hard part - generating interest - in order to paint a rosy picture of the future where women's leagues have as much in resources as men's leagues like MLS. Well, before we can even talk about that we have to find out how to generate that interest. I could claim that if Germany is able to generate interest in baseball, then they could run a good league on 1/30th of what Major League Baseball here in the states does. Problem is, how do we generate that interest and how long will it take to get to that revenue level. It does no good to fantasize about a successful league 20-30 down the road without first thinking about how to get to that level.
The problem is, you're making comparative arguments: country A isn't as passionate per capita as country B. That's not what someone argued, and not what I'm disputing. It was claimed that there is no soccer culture in the US at all, which I disputed. It's hard to see the US being as passionate about soccer as many European nations given that we have 4 major professional sports leagues that have been in existence for decades. The top leagues throughout Europe have had many more decades to grow than MLS and don't have the level of competition from other sports leagues that MLS or WPS does. This is a factor that is not being taken into consideration. I disagree wholeheartedly with your final statement. There are millions of soccer fans in the US that appreciate the skill and intricacies of the game. Those people not only follow MLS, they follow soccer around the world. Somehow they keep getting ignored in this conversation.
Don't forget college sports, especially football and basketball. In many ways, that localized passion parallels the European soccer experience with many showing undying passion for the local team.
Great point, as college basketball and football are all but pro leagues now. Your point about localization is, I think, the best way to grow pro soccer in the US. We don't need the sport to be our favorite, or even second favorite, we need people to get attached to their local club so that their willing to invest in their success by buying tickets and merchandise and watching on television (college sports can rely on students and alumni because of that association with the school). Get enough franchises with growing revenue streams from tickets, merch, and local broadcasting (ad revenue), and you have a solid league foundation. Spending millions or tens of millions on national advertising for a 6-8 team league is a waste of resources in my opinion. Fans in Arizona aren't going to keep a team in Philly financially solvent. Redirect some of that money towards the franchises and they have a better chance to create awareness in their localities that could potentially put more butts in seats and sell more jerseys. One of the things that bothers me about Hope's comments regarding culture and passion between the US and Sweden/Germany is that she's ignoring the lack of attendance and revenue in those countries that resulted from this passion. The average attendance for the Damallsvenskan and FrauenBundesliga are in the hundreds. There isn't the local support to sustain these clubs so they must rely on their federation, men's clubs, what sponsors they can put together, and possibly government subsidies...and they still lose money as a report out of Sweden has shown. We can't afford to rely on the idea that if we can only create the same passion that men's leagues have had decades to build that we'll be ok. You hit the nail on the head with the idea that the focus needs to be local.
What makes it difficult to not jump into the "big, nationwide" league model is the star power of a Hope. A "Hope" attracts fans and sponsors and media attention. The problem is that the "Hopes" of the world will end up being too expensive since you compete against other leagues for them. And if you pay, say $200-500k for a Hope, you need a bigger venue and you need better facilities... you end up needing to be "major league" from the outset. To be successful, localized teams need to avoid going after the expensive talent if it's going to threaten to sink the ship and they need to focus on regional rivals (day travel mostly to keep costs under control).
A national league is certainly a daunting prospect for a small, burgeoning league. Travel costs (specifically air travel...and can you imagine the baggage fees for a soccer team?), including lodging, is a killer. I think the two major semi-pro leagues have been smart to go with a regionalized division format to combat those costs (though you could argue that WPS was regional in its last year) and allow fans to travel more easily to away matches. The troubling thing is that unless your squad makes the playoffs, you're just going to see the same 3-6 opponents every year, meaning your team will miss out on stars playing for teams outside of your division. And with the same clubs dominating their divisions year after year the prospect of, say, Dayton Dutch Lions fans getting to see the stars of the Sounders Women in person is an unlikely one (and the team wouldn't get to face them in Ohio anyway as the semis are at a "neutral," predetermined site. This is why something like the Elite League is necessary. This way, the top talent gets funneled into one division (and with expansion, hopefully two regional division to keep travel costs down) where home fans get to see every other team in person. Spreading it any thinner than that would work against creating a premier level of soccer by watering down each franchise. The franchises most capable of covering costs would participate (the current pro/semi-pro/amateur makeup of the Elite League cannot hold, in my opinion), but must still insist on very moderate player compensation. In all honesty, it would basically be a WPS 2.0 with much lower salary figures. But, yeah, if Hope wants a good pro league in the States, she can't expect a salary anywhere near 200 thousand; even she might not be able to bump revenue by that much for her team.
One thing that will always be a problem for any elite division with the current calendar -- for 2 years out of 4, you'll have a major midseason interruption for World Cup/Olympics which is going to pull your stars away. Assuming the events are in season, you either play without the stars or you go on hiatus.
Absolutely, always a big hindrance. Which is why comparing leagues like Sweden and the US (summer schedule affected by World Cup, Olympics, and European Championships) to Germany (fall, winter, spring schedule that works better around the international calendar) is tough. And moving the American schedule to the common European schedule is a non-starter as the major B-ball, Hockey, and Football leagues (not to mention college sports seasons) would decimate soccer fan bases. I don't think a women's league here will ever not have a problem with the international schedule, which is something teams need to seriously consider when stacking their squads with internationals (Sounders women...) and leagues need to consider when deciding upon the number of franchises.
Teams can have superstars on their teams, Marta's salary isn't coming from her club team but from outside sponsors. Who's to say that there can't be "A Hope" on several teams if their salaries are coming from outside sponsors. It's happening with Solo, Morgan, Wambach here in US.
this brings to mind an interesting phenomenon in france: there are some resoundingly successful clubs in minor sports like volleyball, handball, ice hockey (and in a not too distant past, basketball) who PACK their arenas. but never in major markets; they play in cities like tours, poitiers or limoges where they're not the only but certainly the biggest game in town.
But the point is ... someone has to be willing to pay it. It can't be a general sponsor, say a Nike or Gatorade, who doesn't care where she plays (or otherwise you take the sponsor money & the best offer, if money is your primary motivator). That means the team (or the league) has to have a sponsor lined up to pay the player to be there. Solo, Morgan, Wambach are getting paid the sponsor money regardless right now. I doubt the sponsors added any strings that required they play for a certain team or league or even in the US. After the Olympics, they may head overseas to make better money and keep the sponsor's cash, too. It's possible they decide to stay in the US for next year, but that's because the sponsor's money (plus WNT payments) allows it (or a lifestyle choice or quality of play decision). If the league or a team has the juice to get a sponsor to pony up, more power to them ... though it might not pay off as well as getting the same sponsor on board for less money to provide general support to the team. It's an age old argument in business and sport ... pay for the superstars or get a better supporting cast.
Well they may have lost money, but that mainly due to cutting the margins to short. The clubs in Sweden aren't run for profit so the aim is to break even to be able to use as much money as possible to be a better team and to get the as high as possibel in the system. But they tend to be a bit to optimistic when making the yearly budget (IIRC half the teams had positiv results and half negaitv ones, but all but two of them fairly small negative ones). Over time they do break even apart from a few exception, and then they come crawling to the county for extra money (Malmö) or shut down operation(Bällinge) i think that is the ones that happened during the last 6 years. And the local support is enough to sustain the teams, the difference is that in Sweden ticket sales have always been a minor part of the revenue for sports (mens top league in soccer and the top of the icehockey leaguesystem is pretty much the only one where ticket sales and merchandicing are even close to 50% of the revenue), for all womens sport as well as over 99% of mens sport the main share is sponsoring and then mainly from local companies. So the local support is mainfested in a different way than in the US. And forget about the support from men's clubs, there are only two clubs in Damallsvenskan currently attached to leading men's clubs and they are occuping the last two spots. And that support is pretty much 's limited to the use of the same club name, which indeed do make it easier to get sponsors. Federation and government/county direct subsidies are small if any at all, but they do supply an infrastructure that make running clubs (far?) less expensive than in the US. But that is something that can be used by pretty much all sport clubs (the government/county support) and all soccer clubs (the Federations support). So the Swedish system is way more stable than it appears if looking at it from an US point of view, but exists in such a different enviroment that it is doubtfull if any lesson at all can be taken from it anywhere outside the nordic countries (which already run their leauges in pretty much the same way anyway).
This is certainly an idea that many smaller leagues in the US have to deal with - whether to attempt a franchise in a large city (bigger potential fan base, higher per-capita income, established sports infrastructure, more attractive to players and advertisers, etc.) or a smaller one (less sports competition, more novelty factor for locals, lower operational costs all around, etc). The minor leagues to Major League Baseball are probably the biggest example/success story; while serving as a feeder league for MLB in terms of players, it is also competing with MLB for dollars. So, most of these clubs are located in smaller cities with no major pro teams. WUSA and WPS took the bigger is better approach, establishing the majority of their franchises in large urban areas: San Jose, San Diego, San Francisco, LA, Chicago, St Louis, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Boston - though many teams actually played in the suburbs: pretty much all but Boston, San Diego, and San Jose. It would be interesting to see if a pro league could achieve more short term sustainability (survive more than 3 years) if it attempted to establish its founding franchises in smaller markets with less competition (ie: Baltimore, Louisville, Oklahoma City, Lexington, etc). Costs could be considerably lower, but you would be asking those residents of larger cities (and the geographic enormity of the US as compared to France, Sweden, or Germany greatly exacerbates this when it comes to traveling to road matches) to travel quite a way or watch on television. I don't know what the WPS did ratings-wise in areas that didn't have franchises as opposed to those that did, so I can't say how much a city like New York was invested when the closest team was in Newark, NJ - as was the case with WPS.
What I see in Sweden, and is a problem in just about every soccer league in the world is the pressure to "keep up with the Lyons and Potsdams and Arsenals" - clubs with considerable funding from men's sides and/or sponsors and/or very philanthropic, deep-pocketed owners, forcing other sides to push the limits of their finances. This seems to be the case in Sweden with several teams able to spend - and get a return on that spending - while others are pressed to overspend to stay competitive or just to survive in the top division. I compare Malmo to a club like Rangers, overspending to stay in the title race (and to compete in Europe) year after year, and Ballinge like one of the minnows of the Scottish league, overspending to stay up but dooming themselves to financial meltdown. What I've also noticed in Sweden is that the clubs have tons of sponsors (as shown by the numerous sponsor's badges on their shirts and shorts). No doubt part of the reason is that in Europe there seems to be much more of a connection between teams and their cities/towns - a sense of ownership (that may not be the right word) - whereas women's soccer in the US hasn't been able to establish this on a significant scale yet (this is where sustainability comes in as you can't build a relationship unless the team is around long enough to do so, ala the Washington Freedom, 2001-2011 R.I.P.). And while this connection hasn't resulted in large attendance numbers for the Damallsvenskan, that association seems to be very important for those local businesses as they keep investing year after year. I'm not sure if they're seeing much of a return in their businesses on that investment or if they are big soccer fans able to invest small to moderate sums to keep the team operating, but I'd love to know. I can't overstate the importance of these subsidies. A small to moderate sum is critical when you can count on it year after year. It gives you a baseline as to what level you can operate your club, and then you can plan off of that. [In the US, Puma provided this to an extent, but pulled out before the past season, probably having seen the writing on the wall.] Not to mention the infrastructure that lowers operational costs league-wide. WUSA and WPS basically lacked the advantage of an infrastructure (LA Sol thought they had some in the Home Depot Center, home of the LA Galaxy, but the rental costs were so high that it became a burden. I read that it cost $1 million to rent for one season worth of home matches.) The WPS front office basically shrunk each year of its existence due to cost cut backs. Even a small investment from US Soccer, whether money or use of staff, would be a boon to a women's league here, though I don't think they're obligated to do so...but it'd be nice... Both of these points are true. The semi-pro model of Sweden and the rest of Europe is much more stable than the fully pro model of the WUSA and WPS (this is why the W-League and/or WPSL are probably the way to future growth in the US rather than starting with a fully pro model again), not because they are making a profit, but because their losses are much smaller (and a different conversation can be had about whether this is an environment conducive to future growth of the league or just prolonging an inevitable failure - I'd like to stay optimistic on that point ). And the differences in the models, and environment, are such that it is difficult to find solid lessons that one league can take and apply from one league to another.
One of the issues for the failure of both leagues is indeed that the opportunities for losses was greater than the growth realized, and that is true for both the WUSA and WPS. Their business models just doidnt have a way to deal with the time needed to get a stable economic environment. The WUSA was undercapitalized for the size and expenses incurred. They decided to go it alone without enough capital to sustain them until the revenue met expenses. I remember when the league folded, several of the folks involved (Mia Hamm was one interview I recall) admitted that not affiliating with the MLS and using their expertise was a mistake. The WPS, instead of learning from that lesson, was even worse. Both Nike and Adidas have headquarters in Portland, and many of the employees of those organizations are soccer fans. I once talked to an executive of one of those organizations and he related this story. When the WPS formed, they looked for sponsors. The executive related that when the league came to them, they asked to see the leagues business plan. What they got from the league folks was a blank stare. Nothing, no plan, no idea what kind of money it took to operate a league, no idea how sustainable revenues would be gotten, nothing. In their rush to form the league, they just hadn't done their homework. So what they got for the blank state was the cold shoulder, and the suggestion that the league come back when they had a plan and the advice that they should wait to operate until they had that in order. The women's leagues here have an ideological need to be on their own, but the league organization in both cases didn't seem to have any idea how to go about it. The successful euro leagues are already connected to viable ( rich, even) leagues that can tailor a business plan that works, even if the league is sustained as a "charity".
That mainly because the Federations here have a more direct involvment in the leauges (both women's and men's).
The same could be said for most, if not all of male European football too. It's the extreme end, to the once financially sane element, of community based club culture. You think EPL clubs like Chelsea or Man City have, or will ever have, a serious annual turnover to match their OTT expenditure? If not for their uber rich sugar daddy models, those relatively small clubs wouldn't even be in the EPL, let alone winning things right now, and in a far more innocent/old school reflection of this ownership culture, the European women's game is simply taking baby steps into the understood traditional model for obtaining it's own credible levels of professionalism too. UEFA now find themselves governing an undercover meltdown taking place throughout the men's game, because the old models for obtaining success have become outdated, in a far more globalised, mega club landscape. Instead of competing through the good models of sponsorship thanks to your local rich guy, clubs are having to hope on landing an Oligarch, or Prince, to finance a push for success , but this doesn't make the women's game wrong for doing the same thing on a far more traditional scale. Solo may be frustrated seeing league based stability in Europe, but she's also been part of a professional system, many the best Euro women's programs could only dream of too. While Europe uses it's long established semi pro club models for nurturing success in it's women, America has the highly professional college system for it's girls, which feeds directly into the well paid, well structured national team. So Like guignol suggests, the cultural differences make this debate too wide a subject to nail down to a few point's, as examples already exist, where we have seen nations like England attempt to introduce aspects of the north American system into their own national women's program, only for seemingly progressive ideologies to prove themselves less compatible as first hoped .