Great article except for the part about the US having little football history. We have had a FA since 1913 after all. Also his reasoning on why women´s soccer has taken off in America makes no sense in light that it has also taken off in Scandinavia and Germany. I hate all of these laddish comments I see on boards from men. It bothers me. The women should be encouraged. But they make fun of them. It´s stupid. Anyway, well said. It´s discrimination indeed.
Good article, but women's soccer populartity did not take off due to our "social conservatism"-- that's silly. It was because the women succeeded where the men had not on this sport, among other factors. No one I knew deemed it a "girl's sport".
Good stuff. If anybody needs proof that the women are doing it their own way..get out and check out some D1 womens soccer. What you will see is excellent skills, great athletes who compete extremey hard and at the same time respect the game. What you will not see is players hitting the ground and acting as if they were shot or complaining like a nine year old who's just been scolded by their mother. This is because they are emmulating players like Mia Hamm and Christine Lilly. Come to think of it..you can see the same sharp contrast between boys and girls at the club level. Now..if women could only learn to become "fans" and truly support womens soccer we might be able to have a womens professional league that lasts !!
The Global Game - Global Gleanings I can't remember seeing anyone mention the "Global Gleanings" feature of The Global Game. The May 2005 issue has as a premise "The Once and Future Home of Women's Football." I'd like to the the results of that academic conference on "Women, Football, and Europe"...
Actually, if people who do marketing would learn that the best target audience for a women's football league is men 18 - 49 (look at who watched the '99 WWC) and not 12-year old girls, maybe a league could survive.
I think the marketers did realize the audience was men and their daughters attending most of these games..however they decided this demographic could not work. When I say women I don't mean "girls". A womens professional league needs to have support of women ages 18-99 as well as the men and younger kids to succeed. I don't see that happening. For whatever reason women are not avid sports fans. I hope someone can convince me otherwise...if not I can't see the new league faring any better than the old one!
I don't think the issue is women not being avid sports fans, because we are! Ironically, women, unless they are former athletes or have daughters, who play a particular sport, do not overwhelmingly support women sports.