Re: Re: Re: 9/17 Like a bad Bruce Willis movie That wasn't my point with the quote. I knew exactly who she was blaming. Maybe I should have just put the emphasis on the "brought medals and honor to the U.S." part. That's what got me. As if the men's team is just this crap side that has never won anything or brought honor to the U.S. I know I read too much into it at the time, but it did irk me when I first read it.
Re: Re: Re: Re: 9/17 Like a bad Bruce Willis movie I more quoted you because your post had the quote. I don't think she meant medals and honor to be exclusive to the women, but when people say that, yeah, I'm with you.
Just because the league burned through 100 million in 3 years rather than 5 does not indicate that they were spending money in an outrageous fashion. You can end up with results that are out of whack with your budget either because you spent too much or because you didn't receive the revenue that you expected. Given that the league has been whining about lack of sponsors, I'd say that probably they failed to receive the budgeted sponsorship revenue, while their expenditures failed to decrease in line with the decrease in revenue versus the budgeted figures. From that, you can't deduce whether their budgeted expenditures were higher, lower, or the same as budgeted, just that revenues didn't meet expectations. On the other hand, I'm all in favor of piling on to blame the leadership of WUSA, given that they attempted to pass the buck to the sponsors rather than get out there and sell some ad packages.
From Soccer America: WUSA AFTERMATH: Despite declaring a truce that included double-headers and some cooperative ventures, the men's and women's pro leagues were always bound to go their separate ways. MLS officials weren't pleased several years ago when proponents of a women's league suddenly broke off discussions and took their own course. "It came as a complete shock to us at the time," said a source. "They at least could have informed us prior to their announcement but if that's how they want to do business, that's fine." According to another source, MLS executive vice president Mark Abbott devoted many hours to formulating and drawing up a business plan for a women's league. "He gave it to them, and they tore it up and wrote their own business plan," said the source. "We certainly don't have all the answers, but we tried to tell them what we'd learned about the market and they wouldn't listen." You get free information from an experienced, existing league and don't use it and you have nobody but to blame but your own hubris. Foudy should be honest with the media instead of worrying about dashing little girls' hopes.
"[P]ony-tailed hooligans" -- first time I've ever heard that phrase outside BigSoccer. I always thought the term PTH was a BigSoccer creation.
and a final decision will be made sometime in the next 30-60 days, At least they didn't say in the next 60-90 days. -Von
It's apparently a Grant Wahl creation. See http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2003/writers/grant_wahl/09/18/wahl.insider/index.html and his comments on the very same CSM article.