Today's top story... Must be slow news days...

I've known Bill for a while, and if you care at all about FIFA and CONCACAF corruption, you should check out his home page blogs.

As I said in those comments, he's not totally wrong. The big ad money has gone to the Mia types -- the pony-tailed overachievers that suburban dads would like their daughters to emulate. He's not totally right, either -- Kai is very popular and good with the fans in Philly, and she was in the Puma ad.

I'm guessing he hasn't bothered to come back to the thread, because I'd bet if you asked him, he actually could name some more soccer mom/pros. Off the top of my head, I can think of several retired and at least one more active. Next season, I'm writing a feature on the active one I'm thinking of -- it's long, long overdue. Terrific player.

 

Um, back off the caffeine, my friend. While I appreciate that you pointed out Tasha's popularity, Bill makes some good points and he has said good things about the league in blog posts and does pay attention to women's soccer w/o bashing it unfairly.

Bill's comment about women's soccer being much more eager to promote "girl next door" and pretend none of the players are lesbians does ring pretty true. Especially for folks who've followed women's soccer longer than 15minutes*. Tasha Kai is the exception that pretty much proves the rule. Yes, she is very popular with fans. Yes, she is open about who she is. But Bill's point is still pretty relevant. USSoccer (and WPS but just maybe to a lesser degree) very much doesn't want any of the players but especially marquee ones to be generally/publicly out. A certain someone is the closest that any of them have come and even that is wink/nod/nudge w/o actually saying it out loud.

The only WPS team that I can think of that made any active overtures to the LGBTQ community was CRS putting some ads into Chicago's gay press. The LGBTQ cmmunity is a pretty good market for WPS to aim at bringing to games. Heck someone posted here that "someone they knew" was a bit unhappy that the player they acted as a host family for had "an alternative lifestyle"

*Then again maybe I'm one of only 3 folks who remember that freakish (or is that fetish-like) "We've Got TWINS" running promotion thing in WUSA...

On a side note, I am not so much a fan of the new blog formatting. Harder for me to read and follow the comments. But I don't have a fancy phone or tablet. :shrug: I've stopped reading the blogs so I'd missed this one. And I'm now going to go make a comment.

 

Andy is right, how can you write about the game and not mention the squirrel?

Beau Dure is right, people call Roddick A-Rod. Maybe we should give Amy a new name. How about "The Situation"?

At one time, Tasha Kai was supposed to be the next big thing in an Alex Morgan type of way. Her career has rebounded after having a brief detour for well documented reasons, but I don't think it is fair to say that she was shunned from a PR standpoint due to her image, personality or background. In my mind she's always been a fan favorite, but it has been more just the circumstances that have stalled the league, her individual career and her impact on the WNT more than a concerted and planned effort to hide her from the public. If she had been Abby's strike partner in the World Cup and kept both Rodriguez and Morgan glued to the bench while she pounded in goals to lead the team to the WC trophy, her media star would be shining bright. It is what it is, sometimes life just doesn't go according to script.

Loney captured the right tone overall. WPS is the league version of the LA Dodgers. The off the field issues of things like owner drama, having money to make payroll, player contracts, lawsuits and discord with the league office have cast a pall over the actual games. WPS would make for a decent reality show. Maybe HBO can do a women's soccer version of Hard Knocks.

 

If you've read Dan or Bill much at all, you'd realize they do not (especially Dan) have an anti-women's soccer or even anti-WPS agenda. Bill said very nice things when he attended the 2010 draft (even live blogged it) and if you're paying attention to what he writes, you can tell he pays attention to the games/players. Dan is LA centric in all his writing and after the SOL folded (he went to SOL games), he was were many fans of teams that have folded are. They don't blog to give "helpful comments" about any topic. They make fun of everyone and tend to poke the most at the ones they care the most about when said entities do stupid things (have you read Dan's LA rants?).

Were you not able to name players other than Rampone that have children? And do you not think the Rampone is a mom AND plays soccer stories are over done? The soccer player w/ children puff piece has a long history (long = age of first Fawcett kid...googlesholy crap, her 1st kid is 17 ). And there is a long history of promoting and highlighting the cute/sweet/nice/ponytail (cant possibly be gay if they've got long hair, right?).

If you can't accept that the criticism that homophobia exists in women's sports at all levels, plays a big role in women's soccer marketing in the USA (and worldwide), and that USSoccer & WPS marketers find it easier (and perhaps preferable) to market cute/sweet/nice/straight (letting straight be assumed even if not true) is accurate, then you are the one venturing toward being hypocritical. And you're not paying attention. And are in a ton of denial.

 

Sorry for the double post but I wanted to make my question to you a bit more explicit. What exactly is your claim? I really do want to understand.

I see your claim being that Bill pointed out homophobia w/in women's soccer and you don't see any homophobia. But maybe I've misunderstood and you are not actually claiming that homophobia doesn't exist in women's soccer/WPS marketing.

Maybe you're making some other claim--are you saying that Bill/other people shouldn't point out major shortcomings in women's soccer/WPS such as homophobia b/c that is being negative?

 

Dan's an equal opportunity comedian. Read his posts after men's national team games sometimes. He earned his spot as a blogger here because his posts on the boards were too funny to leave hidden. (And because he had blogged elsewhere successfully.) As others have pointed out, he's hardly anti-WPS. Even after losing the only teams within 3,000 miles or so of his house.

Bill's outspoken and quite often right. Again, not anti-WPS. Not a massive fan who sleeps in Philadelphia Independence bedsheets or something like that, but more than willing to give it a chance.

So I think what you're really seeing her is someone making affectionate jokes and someone pointing out a marketing challenge. Nothing beyond that.

 

Yeah, he's wrong about that. Philly had the better of extra time, but not the first 85 minutes of the game.

 

The first half wasn't great. Not unusual for finals, though.

 

Loney actually covers/mentions WPS/women's soccer quite a fair amount. But this is definitely the first time I've seen the comments section explode with people getting their knickers in a twist. I mean, Loney writes tongue-in-cheek, and that's it.
He also usually writes with the assumption that people know the details of what he's talking about, so that his blog is just the extra - personal stories, his own "analysis", or a sort of "color commentary". I mean, when I read his stuff, if I haven't actually seen the game(s) he's talking about I usually have to go to Wikipedia, USSoccer.com, MLSsoccer.com, etc. to get the details of the game. Which is perfectly fine by me, b/c IMO sports bloggers are their to be entertainers and thought-provokers, not informants.

 

Maybe he would be better served to either start with a paragraph summing up the game and mentioning explicitly that the rest would be just jokes or a link to a more serious coverage of the game. Unless he likes these sort of kerfluffles, I guess.

 

It's just his style. It would be like me saying, "This will be a newsy, mildly analytical account of the WPS final."

 

Exactly. You don't see "kerfluffles" in the comment sections of his blogs because his readers are used to his tone and, like him, poke fun at just about whatever they can, including the things he says. Everyone knows it's all in good fun. Why should he cater to a more tight-laced crowd?

 

No one says he has to cater to them. It just means sometimes a more straight laced reader will take it seriously and thus, there'll be a kerfluffle. Comes with the territory. Anyway, clearly, he and others don't care so it's a moot point.

 

As pointed out, this isn't a news report, its a BLOG.... tone doesn't read much different than what I read from sports COLUMNISTS in the Boston Globe and Herald more often than not. If you don't like his style, or can't handle it, don't read anymore of his writings.

 

Personally, I can't and won't. If you write an article in a blog that includes a comments section, others have the right to criticize it if they choose to. If I think something is garbage, I'll call it garbage. As another poster stated, the article was pointless in relation to the subject matter, and was written simply to try and be entertaining and funny. In my opinion, it was neither.

 

That's fine. The problem is people expecting it to be something else. It's like expecting Ray Hudson to do commentary without raising his voice.

 

+1. There are a few who play the game, and far many more who follow it, who expect women's soccer to have the best of both worlds - get more coverage/attention for their successes and abilities as athletes, but somehow be immune from negative commentary or being made fun of. If you want more attention, it's going to come both ways. E.G. I didn't agree with the notion that the US Women choked the WC final, but I thought it signaled a shift in women's sports being taken more seriously and was a good thing when much of the US sports media was comfortable openly discussing the possibility.

Read the rest of Dan's blogs - the fact he writes about (and Bill Archer comments on) women's soccer the exact same way they write about everything else is a sign of respect.

And for those who still don't get it - IT'S A BLOG, NOT AN AP GAME SUMMARY