So isn't one of the major problems the idea that women's pro leagues here in the U.S. think they must "go big" and be on a national level (tv contracts, high player pay, etc) rather than taking an approach more like D2 or D3 in the men's game? You'd think at some point they'd figure out it's better to keep a league going smaller than failing over and over by trying to go big right away.
I disagree with that completely. Why do so many high schools in Texas have 20,000 seat football stadiums? I mean, the Cowboys and Texans are far superior, as are all the Big XII and WAC college teams. Why does anyone care about college basketball when the NCAA is so superior? It has nothing to do with the inferiority of the product and everything to do with the culture of women's team sports as spectator sports. MLS/USMNT have been fighting the same battle. What's going on in Seattle is uprecedented, but MLS is starting to gain traction as an accepted leisure time activity. The WNBA is slowly persisting, but women's team sports have never successfully turned that corner. That doesn't mean none ever will. Just like men's outdoor soccer in the U.S. - times do change. It's just that it's very hard. The NASL faces the same issues. If someone in the Triangle says they're taking their family to a Bulls (minor league baseball) game, nobody thinks anything of it. If they say RailHawks, they're likely seen as being a "bit weird", but it definitely is slowly becoming more accepted. WPS's issues don't really stem from inferiority, they stem from cultural acceptance.
Wouldn't the answer to these things simply be group association? High Schools, Colleges and the like all draw massive figures because thousands of people go through their doors every year and have an emotional attachment to them in a way they don't with professional teams. You feel part of the community in a way you can't with a pro team. Furthermore in many smaller towns they perform the same role that lower league teams do in England being the sporting focal point of a town that wouldn't be able to host a top level professional team. Women's soccer can't do this. It doesn't have the community aspect that school and community based teams have. People are happy to go and watch them even if the standard of play is poor and even if the team sucks because they're your school/college where you spent years of your formative life. Women's soccer teams are just professional sports teams putting on what is essentially entertainment, there is no community spirit and personal attachment to them in the first years and I'd argue that professional sports take a long time to build up the attachment of high school/college teams even when they are successful. Thus the standard of play is much more important as if it's entertaining then you'll keep coming and over time develop an attachment; if the standard is poor then you'll just drift towards the men's game for your soccer fix or other sports entertainment. Only the hardcore will persist in watching the lower standard of women's soccer if they have MLS on their doorstep for their soccer fix. Thus women's teams can never build up any kind of support and cultural acceptance in the way that other teams have because they invariably fail well before then. Furthermore there is a cultural concept that women's sports are inferior to men (actually true in soccer but that's beyond the point) which makes the game an even harder sell. Soccer has enough cultural baggage, let alone adding the cultural baggage of women's soccer. The vast amount of women's teams tend to be placed in large urban areas aswell when there isn't just competition within the soccer community but very strong competition from more established sports. Being in these large communities they also can't fill the niche of representing smaller communities that some high school and college teams do. It's an uphill struggle that I don't ever see women's football winning and I don't see a benefit from MLS or NASL teams in affiliating unless they want to be see as being altruistic and supporting all forms of soccer in their community in a way to attract women.
Exactly my point. "Inferiority" has nothing to do with it. Cultural acceptance as a spectator sport takes time.
On top of the previous response, inferiority can only be applied across identical lines. HS and college football are completely different from the NFL in atmosphere and have a decent amount of difference in their rules. The same goes for NCAA vs NBA basketball or NCAA vs professional any other sport for the most part. In rural Texas, it's all they have. HS football through most of the rest of the country isn't anywhere near as successful. There's nothing to differentiate between men's and women's professional soccer in this country aside from gender and quality of play.
My guess is that the average ticket paying fan isn't particularly aware of the differences in the rules between the NFL and NCAA or High School football. It's still "football". The differences are as minor as the annual rule changes between NFL seasons. We're talking CFL/NFL level differences. Nobody is kicking behinds in high school football.
Actually, there are only three and one of them is Pizza Hut Park. Alamo Stadium seats 23k, PHP 21k and Mesquite Memorial Stadium is 20k. Allen, TX is getting a new 18k, $60M stadium that will be the fifth-largest in the state and largest housing just one team. In all, there are currently 13 Texas high school stadiums that hold more than 16,000. But your point is valid. Just adding details.
Thanks. I don't know what the capacity is, but there is another HS football stadium near PHP that I've driven by multiple times that is quite impressive. I think it's within 5 miles. Those people are pretty crazy about their inferior product.