My post was pretty tongue in cheek. I thought someone said white guys just want to keep their wimmins in line or something to that effect, but maybe I was just having a Dan Loney flashback. Anyway, I'm all for the Houston Dynettes or whatever they choose to call them. Today's game was quite entertaining even watching in on a bad internet stream at work.
I really don't like those names like Rockettes, or Dynettes, or whatever. The Sounders got it right by calling their women team the Sounders Women.
This topic deals with three of my favorite things: (1) money losing ideas from folks who don't run a business, (2) Jose de Jesus Ortiz tweets and role models (3) Eric Wynalda and overestimating the appeal of a sport based on the Olympics. I'll preface this by saying I only caught the last few minutes of extra time today and it was exciting. And the 2011 win over Brazil was probably the game of the year IMO, so I don't hate women's soccer. On (1), the Dynamo Academy in theory is supposed to help develop players locally/regionally who can someday play for the Dynamo and/or allow the Dynamo to develop young talent that they can someday sell on. With the homegrown player rules incentivizing teams to that (doesn't count against salary cap) it could someday be important to the team. Sponsoring a girl's academy does not further this at all. Even if they develop girls, what is the payoff? Nothing. If you want to allocate marketing money and sponsor a team, fine, but I'd rather spend money to develop a player for the Dynamo, not for the A&M women's team. On the marketing angle, attracting women fans is important, but some of the logic about women graduation rates and female CEOs down the road sounds an awful lot like another marketing idea that has fallen flat on its face for MLS - attracting Mexican fans. With a limited marketing budget, throwing dollars at these long-shot targets to attract to games - especially thru something as indirect as a female academy team - is just a waste. Not to mention that no women's professional league has ever made it long-term (Oh, I can hear people screaming about the WNBA now, 15 years, . . . . how many NBA owners still own the teams? Most of them bailed on it even as it was filling their arenas in the summer!) and the WPS had more reasonable expectations and couldn't make it. Women's pro soccer here is like pro lacrosse - you can have a short season but everyone needs a second job. I've always gotten the sense that the women's national team players felt they should be full-time pros by some sort of birthright, even if the economics never made sense. On (2), Ortiz tweeted today this:" OrtizKicks As a father of 3 girls who live, eat and breathe soccer, I cannot tell you how much the @ussoccer_wnt motivates my girls. What role models." I absolutely hate the role model thing. How many folks really want their girl to be like Rapinoe and all of that? Or Hope Solo? Or maybe Wambach? Great soccer players, but leave it at that. And if you read some stuff about how the WPS failed, there was a clear divide between the USWNT players who that Magic Jack guy spoiled and some of their teammates who he wouldn't cover medical expenses for (some girl from Chicago who broke her nose) and who they really didn't support. Hope Solo speaks for herself. On (3), only the bizarre rantings of a persecuted man who blackballed himself from US Soccer and MLS would say the following: "Wynalda11 It needs to be said- the USWNT are responsible for more top ten moments than the men- so proud of them. They make me proud to be American" My friend Eric I guess likes to denigrate his own accomplishments. What an absurd statement. OK, count today, 2011 vs. Brazil, the 1999 WC final shootout, maybe one other game in the 1990s (IIRC, they had some big wins over Norway). That's four games, maybe, that you would put in top 10 US Soccer moments. I can think of Paul Caliguri's goal, '94 win over Columbia, 2002 2nd round, Donovan's Algeria goal, Confederations Cup 2009, and pick a qualifer of importance off the top for 6 right there. And nothing pre-1989. Lastly, folks confuse the appeal of the World Cup and the Olympics with the viability of an annual league. MLS struggles with this as well to a degree. There is a reason why NBC pays $1 billion for the rights to an Olympic games but doesn't cover any of the sports in the intervening years - it's because we love a big event in the US but not the more mundane year-to-year stuff, outside of the major sports.
Unless the nickname is gender specific (like Cowboys) then I really do not like the idea of putting "Lady" or "Women's" in the name. For example, UConn women's basketball is the Huskies, not the "Lady Huskies" as opposed to Tennessee who are the "Lady Vols". It just seems so weird to me that a distinction needs to be made. It might not be exactly the same with a pro club; I can see that.
it'd be awesome if a university with the nickname "bulls" called their female teams the "cows"... or maybe the "heifers"...
I'd support a Dyna-Women team. Maybe not support if Alex Morgan was on the team...what has she done lately?
If you read Ortiz's tweets, he was talking about the Academy level, not necessarily a full-on Dynamo Women's team. That said, as long as I can tailgate at it, I'd try out a few Dynamo Women's games.
I think they offers some support - use of training facility for one - but the general growing of the sport belongs to the federation. Plus I also want the Dynamo FO to sponsor my favorite project too.
This is a good read as to why women's soccer is a long, long way from ever being a pro league in the US: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/olympics/2012/writers/grant_wahl/08/02/usa.women.foreign.leagues/index.html I will maintain that many of these "role models" that Ortiz refers to have unrealistic view of their worth as soccer players
My cousin was an All-American out of Texas in '92, I dated years ago a girl from Florida that played pro ball in Sweden. Both were females that show everything that is boss in our American women. I've been to so many women's games in my life it is difficult to count, I love our U.S.A. women and celebrate their accomplishments. Yet I work in the business world and losing money is not high on any business's list. Thus, supporting women's pro soccer has to be looked at with a double edged sword, losing cash but grows a side of the sport that reaches a huge demographic of said sport. I would go to every Ladies Dynamo game cuz I would like to think the players our club would field would be class on and off the field. It is when the Title IX, we are women hear us roar crap turns up from some in that side of our sport that turns dedicated women's soccer supporters off. It's like take it easy chica, somebody somewhere is paying for you to play not paying to see you play. That is all.
I'd concur with that. Although it seems that this group of players is less concerned than the Foudy-Hamm-Chastain group with being on the Mount Rushmore of Title IX. But our boy Ortiz isn't going to let this one go until he gets a personal exhibition in Houston for his little girls: http://blog.chron.com/soccer/2012/08/its-time-for-u-s-olympic-champions-to-return-to-houston/ May I ask who they play in these "Celebration Tours"? Other semi-pro teams? Other national teams? The Washington Generalettes?
