I'd been looking forward to NY vs. Magic Jack since the schedule came out. The extremely hot Hope Solo and Alex Morgan on the same pitch? At some point I forgot there was a game. These two are just too much. I hate to sound like "a man", but the league really needs to use these ladies to promote more. Look what Ronaldo, Beckham, Donovan, Ferdinand do for their teams and leagues, not to mention soccer as a whole. Sex sells, plain and simple. It's human nature. I would not lose my respect for them in any way, if done tastefully. Let's face it. In the majority of sports crazed homes the father pulls the purse strings when it comes to sports, and guys fill the vast majority of seats at sporting events. If this league is to thrive they've got to reach them. I am a father, and I've even asked my daughter and wife what they think ( They know of my lust for Hope and Alex. LOL!!!) , and they agree. These ladies could sell hub caps to a man riding a donkey. Why not use them to sell the league and sport, not to mention perfume, clothing, just about anything. Just my opinoin. Hope and Alex! WOW!
Re: Hottest Women's Player, v2.0 Just want to make sure I understand your point: The majority of soccer fans are male and sexually attracted to Ronaldo, Beckham, Donovan, Ferdinand. And presumably they marry to hide their sexual preference?
Re: Hottest Women's Player, v2.0 Hey, what other reason could explain Qatar's huge expense in bribing their way into hosting a WC. They can see the huge social and financial benefits of sexually attractive men running around a field for 90 mins, so why can't you.
Re: Hottest Women's Player, v2.0 Yet again people on this forum crack me up. People read one sentence in a blog and don't read it completely, or that sentence is all they think about and they forget the rest or don't look at it in whole. In the sentence before I clearly stated they should use them to promote more, and then gave examples of men who do the same. Because I'm familiar with soccer I may see an ad with Ronaldo in it and look twice because he's selling a certain watch or car. Where as I may not know the female players, but I may see an attractive women in an ad and look twice then realize they are a soccer player in the WPS. I will try to break it down to simple terms so you can understand where I was coming from. I think most can understand I was referencing male players because they use their looks to sell themselves and soccer in general. The same way I think the women should. Most of the men and women I talk to don't even know there's a women's league because they never see these players on t.v., in ads, etc.. I even coach girls teams, and until this year, they didn't know there was a women's league. It's just sad.
Re: Hottest Women's Player, v2.0 There are a large number of females that watch sports because the guys are sexy and ripped (go to a baseball game; women seem to love b-ball butts). Beckham and Ronaldo are great examples of how men's sports can be marketed to bring in the female segment that might otherwise not care (or at least be drawn in). I remember reading an article by SE Cupp where she said she was a big Fulham fan because she thought Carlos Bocanegra was cute. It's a little more difficult when the coin is flipped, obviously, because you don't want it to turn into blatant sexism or objectification. The previous poster was right that there are guys with deep pockets out there who would have no problem emptying said pockets to watch a talented/beautiful woman play. Did anyone see what Hope's jersey from the WNT auction went for yesterday? It just takes a woman that is comfortable and confident enough to be portrayed as "sexy", but knowing where to draw the line (somewhere short of Maxim I would guess). The unfortunate drawback to this is the inevitable catcalls and heckling from drunk pigs at games. And just so this doesn't stray too much from the topic: Tina "I'm too sexy for the WNT" DiMartino.
Re: Hottest Women's Player, v2.0 Amen, steviebeat. Someone who knows exactly what I'm talking about. So, I got off topic for a second and get idiots questioning my sexual orientation. Unbelievable? No, I guess not in todays world. I swear people have a bad day at work or are just angry all the time and come on here to start an anonymous confrontation. I guess I should know better. Just giving an opinion. Back to the topic. Go Hope and Alex! No cat calls, just appreciation and admiration.
Re: Hottest Women's Player, v2.0 Afraid to ask. Should not assume people have our sense of humor. What would you choose? A selfish man-ho or a chubby guy who can't tell a man from a woman?
Re: Hottest Women's Player, v2.0 Started a new thread, given the way this was going in the Hottest Player thread. Normally I don't care if things go off-topic, but it's one of those topics that gets debated a good bit.
Re: Hottest Women's Player, v2.0 No prob. Bonnie Lass. My opologies for going off topic. I was trying to get it back on. So, what's your opinion on the subject of players using their looks to sell the sport, league, themselves...? It's obviously been debated before, and you've probably given your opinion in the past, but I'm new here and haven't seen it before. I've even spoke with a few other female co-workers who agree with me. As long as the product or subject matter is tasteful, why not use ones popularity and attributes as an athlete to sell it?
Re: Hottest Women's Player, v2.0 We're mainly a bunch of merry mischief-makers in the women's forum. Don't worry. None of us will tell... (What happens in BigSoccer stays...) But yes, I'm one of those who believes that women's soccer has lots of pretty faces going for it so why be shy about using them to promote the game? The big difference, however, between women going to see David Beckham and guys being attracted to a pretty girl is, as someone mentioned above, that guys usually cross the class/crass line quickly, much more so than women. Men tend to get crude about it. Worse, they start putting down the women they don't find so attractive; that's something you rarely, rarely see among the women who are going to see Beckham; they don't go out of their way to say cruel things about the guys that don't look like Becks. That is a danger in promoting women's soccer and, quite frankly, I think it's our responsibility as fans to be aware of it and to actively help our fellow fans not cross the line, reminding them to keep it classy. Having said that, HELL YES show some pretty pictures. Why is it that whenever there is something in the news on the Internet the writers and the website seem to go out of their way to avoid showing pretty pictures. I catch flak for teasing Archer and Loney for missing the opportunity to show pictures of Hope Solo. Jacqueline Purdy on ESPN had a nice article (as discussed elsewhere here) about "Meeting Becky Sauerbrunn" - and it was a nice article but why the heck wouldn't you show a picture of her? She's a pretty girl! And she pulls up the sleeve over the shoulder! HuffingtonPost, which rarely has an article on women's soccer, had one when the US announced their World Cup roster. Here's the photo they used: I loved a couple of the comments that generated. Here's one from reader Tmboy Equalizer and All-White Kit are great. But why not some pics?! With any luck they have some budding fans venturing by - why not some pictures?! True, maybe no one's quite as pretty as the Beckham guy but still...
I think we can all agree that women's game could be promoted better by tweaking a couple of little things. Kola, you know there is someone out there that finds that pic sexy.
Re: Hottest Women's Player, v2.0 I imagine that because they are quasi-professional soccer blogs they have to pay for the rights to use a picture and that's not in their budget.
All we need to do is find a way for WPS to get a nickel for every one of these "sex sells" threads and they'll be rolling in the money. As a guy, here are some of my thoughts on the role of male sexuality in men's sports. First, guys like good looking male athletes and I'm not just talking about gay guys. It is kind of like James Bond. Do you want your star athlete to look like Austin Powers or like Pierce Brosnan? Being good looking fits the stereotype, because the athlete symbolizes male power and another male doesn't typically look at them as a sexual object thinking "Wow, Daniel Craig has a hot body, I'd really like to have sex with him", they project their own self image through these hero archetypes in society, art and entertainment and think "Wow, Daniel Craig is cut. I wish I was James Bond." I don't think it is a coincidence that guys like Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, Arnold Palmer, Jimmy Connors, etc. are good looking guys. Compare Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul Jabbar (or Kareem and Wilt Chamberlain). Both fantastic basketball players and teammates. Kareem is much more introverted and guarded in his personality, Magic is very outgoing. The good looking guy tends to always be the bigger star. It is a similar reason that in the age of television, the President is generally a tall, good looking guy and when a woman gets elected President, I'm going to bet she's not going to be bad looking either. Why are most news anchors good looking? Male sex appeal doesn't just attract female fans, it is a very central part of selling sports to men. Second, and in a similar way, male fans are not intimidated or turned off by female fans being attracted to male athletes. I've read too many sports articles to mention about athletes like Steve Sax (a former LA Dodger) or Mike Alstott (former Tampa Bay Buc) that don't beat around the bush at all on the subject. Acknowledging that the player is a sex symbol to women who want to rip his clothes off of his back isn't considered to demean the ability of the player, it fits with the stereotype that women want to be with the star athlete, whether he is in high school or in the pros, and the James Bond type image that the male's sexuality is so irresistible and overpowering that women can't help themselves. Men don't shy away from this, they want it, now sell us that magic bodyspray, car or light beer that will do the same thing for us so that we can start dating supermodels. There are similar news articles about athletes like Heather Mitts, Natalie Gulbis, etc., but I think it is interesting that there is more of an ambivalence to the issue in regards to a female athlete. There is more of a conflict between being objectified sexually and having sexual power. For the male on the other hand, it is almost like they are the same thing. So, yes I understand that when people say "use sex to sell women's soccer" they mean that we need to use sex appeal to attract male fans, because most sports fans are male. I always say the same thing on the subject, though, because I think the real issue for women's sports is how to use sex to sell sports to female fans (both gay and not gay). Women need to create their own James Bond archetype. Does the hero have to be gorgeous? Well, not necessarily that's kind of the beauty of it is that it is more of a blank slate, but it has to appeal to society in general in a way that transcends just sports in particular and defines gender roles in a broader sense. So, I don't think we should strive to be stuck in the old stereotypes where the male is in more of a dominant position and women are at worst ashamed and at best ambivalent about their own sexuality and sex appeal. But, I don't think it necessary is progress if the female role model is just to act like the male archetype, because frankly James Bond is kind of a jerk. We already have men behaving badly. Maybe the idea should be more to blow up that unrealistic model altogether and start fresh. In the end, it needs to be up to women to define that standard instead of letting society define it for them. So, I don't really know what that model will be, it hasn't come together yet. It is still a lump of clay and female athletes are like sculptors working on it.
Re: Hottest Women's Player, v2.0 I was wondering. (Anyone know for sure? Anyone care to ask Jeff or Jenna?) If that's the case... can we get some amateur photogs to contribute some pix?
There's loads of attractive female soccer players. You just can't force a pretty girl playing a decent standard in to being a star though. If she's nowhere near being the best in her sport, the gimmick soon becomes destructive to others around her. Every game you see now there's a few girls that pop off the screen as being very pretty. They don't look to hide it, or tone their on field feminine nature down either. You even see players wearing make up at times on the field, knowing their on TV with a decent audience taking notice. When promoting themselves the girls seem quite good, it's the people and options around them which makes things difficult. Blatter said wear tighter uniforms. Average Joe 2 pack would say why don't they take it all off. The hardcore football fan want's nothing to do with them, while the libral male fan feels slightly more sex appeal will appease all. As usual at no point does being good actually factor in anything. It doesn't matter what these girls do, it feels like they can't win without losing. If you think a David Beckham ad for Versace or Calvin Klein brings in more fans to his football team or league, your mistaken. What he does out side football is good for him alone, as it's all about him as a celeb. Beckham's appeal to a wider mainstream audience has everything to do with his highly developed, marketed, and carefully constructed image, off the field. Nothing from EPL/Man Utd, La Liga/Real Madrid, Serie A/AC Milan, or MLS/LA Galaxy, has to do with his rise to pop culture fame. WPS can only do so much in the positive exploitation of any players sexy profile. A pretty face can only project so much, before the product has to be seen and evaluated. The only time American women's soccer had a female with top quality ability, combined with the necessary wider pop culture celeb appeal, was with Mia Hamm. Hamm brought in the short term mainstream attention that quickly gave birth to a whole league, but the league wrongly thought it could symbiotically live of that fame. As expected the sport and the fame soon faded back to the reality of soccer in America, and women's sport globally. Getting pretty and talented soccer girls into mainstream culture through big sponsorship deals, won't guarantee WPS anything other than famous rich female athletes. MLS and the whole Beckham experiment should have proved that. It's just always easier to tell girls to be sexy to be popular, because that's how everything else is set up to operate when it deals with women. And that's the contradiction of what takes a female athlete to the top of her sport, versus the role of the strong female in wider society.
If you want to use sex appeal to sell soccer, it doesn't have to come from the players. You could put together a cheerleader/dance team like they do in other pro sports. Unlike the NFL where the cheerleaders aren't actually cheerleaders, the women actually could have a role in leading the crowd in different cheers and songs. Have the players on the bench join in, so at different points in the game a couple of them go around with the cheer team members and interact with the crowd.
If I may say something here, sex does sell but certainly not all the time. As a female, I do enjoy watching Roger Federer play tennis but I'd hate to think I'm only watching a game of tennis because of his looks. Yes, he does look rather hot but I still intend on watching tennis after he eventually retires. I suppose what you could say is, sex in advertising is a good way to grab people's attention but the rest also depends on the product or service you have at offer and whether or not people appreciate it. For example, many women love Cristiano Ronaldo and David Beckham, without a doubt. Having said that, these two footballers are also highly talented at what they do. What if women's football didn't have a lot of top quality players who met men's 'expectations' with their appearances? Should we (as decision makers) brush them aside in favor of players who are less talented but are, instead, hotter/sexier in the eyes of some men? Therefore at the end of the day, I think what matters most is advertising the game itself. It's the sport that should come first, before any other factor that could further stimulate a person's attention. A classic example of crossing the boundary was the Australian Women's Basketball team during the Beijing Olympics. I don't know who came up with the idea of having them dress in unitards but it was a tasteless attempt to encourage more male viewers, in my opinion. I'd hate to think of a future where male footballers dress up in particular ways in order to attract women's attention towards the TV. If following a team or sport has anything to do with what the athlete is wearing or how sexy he/she looks, then I don't think it's healthy and we'll end up attracting many viewers for the wrong reasons. In conclusion, it should be about the game and any form of inevitable exhibitionism should be kept minimal. I hope I didn't bore you with that.
This is what I put in the 'To skort or not to skort' thread that's located further down the page. It dealt with sex sells, but not as directly as this thread. I mean, how many men actually went out and bought WTA tickets when Anna Kournikova was in town? And of those, how many bought tickets that weren't tennis fans? I don't think a little bit of 'sex sells' would kill anyone. I don't have a problem with the occasional sexy advertisement, interview spot or photo shoot that showcases attractive players. What I do object to is if it becomes the primary marketing focus of the league. You cannot market sex appeal heavily and then expect people to take the league seriously. There's also the realization that a LOT of sex appeal is not sold as much, if at all, by the actual leagues/teams/organizations. A good bit of that comes from athletes selling products and media outlets who want to do sexy shoots. Then there's the problem of what defines 'attractive.' Everyone has their own personal tastes when it comes to beauty. Take a look through the 'Hottest Player' thread and you'll know what I mean. And would you be marketing towards just men? Or would you market towards lesbians as well? And how do you market to just one of them without turning off the other? I think ultimately it's just a whole lot of cons to only a handful of pros. If you make even one wrong step, it could actually cost you fans. So, you'd like bloggers and reporters to censor unattractive photos in lieu of something prettier? What happens when a player simply does not photograph well? Would you make the same argument for politicians, celebrities and male athletes? It's not their job to be a PR firm for the league. It's a sport -- not a fashion shoot. I value the cute pictures of players -- be it on the field or in street clothes. But since I'm a sports fan and I'm looking at sports photos, I understand that not every player can be photogenic in a shot that shows her taking a header or making a save. If anything, the bad photos make the good photos that much better. I do get the point you're trying to make, but as an editor, I don't think I'd ever give up an awesome action photo just because the players are making an awkward face or they weren't pretty enough. I think it's damn insulting to women athletes to think or act otherwise. Pretty or GTFO.
All the cautionary points are fine and worth making. But they are also that - cautionary. Possibly over-cautious. You know, how many times is there a photo accompanying an article on the LA Galaxy? How often does that photo show David Beckham? Maybe he had an assist, maybe not, but even if he did why not show the goal-scorer instead of Becks? Does anyone get up in arms about the other guy being "censored out"? Why the gosh-darned heck are we so determined to make it hard for the league to market itself? And we're supposedly the gosh-darned fans! Of course there are certain sensibilities we need to follow. Even though I'm sure all of us would like to, we can't use that icebucket photo of Tobin Heath all the time for every article on the national team, ignoring the existence of every regular starter and the coach while Tobin only gets spot minutes here and there. We had a discussion here last year about some interview that then-Commissioner Tonya Antonucci gave, in which Hope Solo was prominently mentioned. I made the same point back then, I wish they had used the opportunity to use a photo of Hope. Someone answered (sensibly) that the article was primarily about the Commish but how hard is it to work out a solution? Hey, show the Commish (actually she's a pretty attractive woman anyway)! But show Solo, too. Two side by side photos: Photo 1: the Commish. Caption 1: "Tonya Antonucci stepped down yesterday as Commissioner of WPS, the professional women's soccer league" Photo 2: the Solo. Caption 2: "Hope Solo, star goalkeeper for the national team and the Atlanta Beat, the newest franchise in WPS. She was fined for comments made on Twitter"* Remember, it's just an example anyway of how you work in a good picture to go with your story. (* believe it or not, that's what the mention of Solo was about. I looked it up. Some things don't change!) There are no fundamental disagreements here. It may not be a journalist's job to be a PR firm for the league, but how do we explain all the David Beckham photos? How do we explain the amount of coverage Maria Sharapova still gets even though she hasn't won a major in years. Let's also not create a false dichotomy between "awesome action photos" and ones where the players are pretty. If we have an awesome action photo, great! Run it! But how many great action photos are there that we're asking to be sacrificed? The one I linked to from Huffington Post that shows Abby and a Japanese player both grimacing as they go up for a header? What's so awesome about it? It just looks awfully unattractive.
And as if right on cue, the women's tennis tour has launched a new promotional campaign which seems designed to make the players look fashionable and beautiful. An article by Laura Gottesdiener on HuffingtonPost discusses whether this is apppropriate or not. (My opinion? My initial reaction is neutral. I don't see great harm in it but it's also a much more obvious attempt to make the sport seem sexy - more blatant and obvious than what I'm primarily concerned with for women's soccer. Perhaps the word is "forced" - it's trying too hard. On the other hand, I wouldn't mind knowing which player it is in that picture.) *** and you'd think I would add a comment over at Huffington Post but looking at the other comments being made there (about midnight Eastern time), I'm flabbergasted. Speechless. Overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly, as of this moment, the comments are along the lines of, "What's the problem? These women are beautiful."
I think your obsessing on the wrong point. The reason Beckham or a Sharapova are seen so much, is down to factors out side of the sports they play. The fact either one of these pop culture icons are pretty, has little effect on the appeal of the sports they actually play. It's not a promotional tactic deployed by MLS or the WTA to show these or other attractive athletes on every occasion their games are covered by the media. Mainstream media chooses to use the highest profile athletes images because they have a far wider public reach than the sporting associations they play within. These athletes have big commercial brand partnerships. A connection to brands that the average Joe feels comfortable with, comfortable to the extent of being able to maybe read an article which includes info on things they possibly dislike, like MLS or the WTA. Throwing up endless posed photos of pretty female soccer players in every article concerning the sport, does nothing for anybody else except the guy's or girls who enjoy looking at a pretty girl once in a while. Few sports provide the perfect opportunity for sexy or beautiful images of it's athletes within game situations. You can't guarantee pretty or sexy in the way you would like, in less it was fake or staged. The skort was a poor fake attempt at introducing sexy into female soccer. Anything else like the skort which distracts you from the quality of play on show, is also a bad idea. Leave that to tennis . Can't we be happy that there's even an article to read, let alone a few pics of the action involved, even if the girls are not in their most glamorous state? We live in a time where idiots are now buying technology based on the brand associations they think will make them sexy or cool. So I understand why you think marketing based on youth and sex appeal should work for the female soccer athlete too. As a guy though, I often wonder who tells female athletes that this is the only route to go down. Simple common sense will tell any avid sports fan that unlike most things we buy into, sports based on gimmicks without good quality or competition, are doomed to flop. The potential wider public audience and big brand endorsement will come with time, like it did with the men's game. It just seems backwards to force things, for no real reason other than the lazy excuse of sex sells. Tennis is not on footballs scope. Female football has ridiculous amounts of potential global growth, while tennis is hmmmmmm, tennis . Women in tennis play shorter games than the men, wear silly little outfits with matching earrings, and make oh so very sexy sounds when they hit the ball really hard. In it's very nature, the female side of the sport is set up to always struggle with it's girls being taken seriously. A few girls at the top of tennis make serious loot, thanks to huge sponsorship deals they get from being pretty. Small amounts of their success is down to being the best player for any serious length of time though. It's a few girls getting very rich for being pretty, while the tour keeps fighting for the same things every women's sports league want's, which is stability and respect. It doesn't surprise me to see the WTA use a gimmicky ad campaign every so often. It's what they do. Guy's say 'oooh, she's pretty', then go back to having no serious interest in taking the sport seriously. Ad campaigns like these would do little for female soccer over the long term, as it's a sport with a much bigger landscape.