The naming rights to the Frisco hut will go for somewhere in the range of $30-$40MM. The day Alper gets that paper signed, all debts ever incurred by the Burn and absorbed by the league will be Obliterated. Lamar is spending $10MM to get HDC-prime. No one has ever confirmed to me that HSG actually paid a rights fee for the Burn. Which means that all income from Day 1 is "in the black", and with the revenue streams being discussed, the Burn's salary budget could quintuple the first year and the team would still show profit. IF the accountants decided to show a profit. -bs
Re: Re: Re: Re: Foudy Repents! Kind of reminds you of CONCACAF qualifying, doesn't it? The Americans women can play a week-long tournament at home (or in Canada) and crush the little banana republics 12-0. The men go on the road to perhaps the most intimidating quintet of stadiums in the world: Saprissa, San Pedro Sula, Azteca, The Office, and Mazatenango. (Of course, we have Columbus in February.) ___________________________ A couple of years ago, I talked to Monica Gerardo of the Mexican women's team. She told me at the time that the Mexican federation wouldn't dream of having a home match at Azteca. What happens? The CONCACAF-AFC playoff vs. Japan draws more than 100,000 at Azteca. HOLY KRONK! I can see a home-and-home series of matches for CONCACAF qualifications instead of a tournament. Imagine if the US had to play at Edmonton, Azteca, Panama, Cuba, and Saprissa over the course of eight months. That's much tougher than winning a Gold Cup in two weeks.
Nice one! Can someone (other than Oliver Nostradamus) explain to me why I should care what Alan R. and Sunil think of the WUSA? And while I'm sure the women would be happy to see AEG get involved, there are other sources of money in this country. Surprised no one has mentioned how much money other leagues (ahem ... NHL) have blown through. We've just had the dubious MLS math equation: "Well, they said in court that they'd lost $250M through five years of play, so if we extrapolate $50M a year from then on, ignoring the fact that expenses differ a bit from 1995 to 2001 ..."
Boys, boys, boys. Everything you have said about the USMNT having a much tougher road than the USWNT is true. However, as Americans you also know that America loves winners, not also-rans. It doesn't matter how many times the guys beat Mexico or Turkey; until they bring home the Cup they won't get the respect - at home and abroad - that the women do. Around the world, even in places where women's soccer barely registers, people are aware of the US women's reputation as the best. You see, not only does the USWNT bring home the hardware but they've made other nations more supportive of their women's teams, thus helping to provide many more opportunities for girls around the world. The US has raised the bar worldwide. That's the truly great part of the legacy of the USWNT. By the way, many nations - including England, Sweden, Australia, Norway, etc. - had NT long before the US did and they didn't have the impact the US did. Check out this week's Sports Illustrated and the 11 page in-depth interview and cover photo of Mia. No USMNT player will ever get this kind of coverage or honor. Unless, of course, they start winning.
The whole thing about "Beating the World" really drives some folks crazy. I know, you know, knowledgeable soccer fans (er, football) fans know that (1) women's soccer has a following in only a few countries and (2) that winning the Women's Gold Cup is easier than 1 1/2 years of qualifiers. I imagine even the women know it. And because a 12 year old girl does not know it or some guy whose only interest in soccer is wanting to do a close up inspection of Bradi Chastain's sports bra does not realize that is not a reason to get bent out of shape. The women, the coaches, the investors and the sponsors of WUSA want people to come and spend money. The players want to get paid for doing something they love. How should they market it? How about these proposed slogans for WUSA II: 1. Our soccer sucks. 2. We lose all the time to Boys U-16 teams, but watch us anyway. No, they say "We are the best women's league in the world" "Watch world beaters play". So they get into hyperbole. That is advertising.
How much they "spent" is completely meaningless without the revenues. I think you need to re-take one of your biz-school classes.
Beau's pretty much noticed above that Phil Anschutz MAY not be the only guy who has a lot of money in this country. Further, if I had to bet the farm, my money is on the side of Uncle Phil looking for some more soccer dates at HDC, not opening up his checkbook and saying "have fun" to a bunch of marketing gerbils in New York. Gulati is a wholly owned subsidiary of The One Who Cannot Be Named. He'll give his opinion as soon as it gets faxed over to him. TOWCBN is only relevant inasmuch as USSF and FIFA will need to bless whatever arrangements resurrect the league. He's their North American bagman. This one gets me. Donna Lopiano and BJK, described as "Women's Sports Activists" send precisely the wrong signal here. We need soccer people, not gender pimps. Completely different. Dr Bob's Traveling Circus is all for anything and everything that will put another professional league in the US. You want a "United Dwarfs Soccer League"? How about the "Over 90 Year Olds Professional Soccer Association"? "Major Amputees Soccer League"? Whatever it is, Bob is all for it. MLS is concerned with it's own survival, as well it should be. TOWCBN has everyone's ear, and I'm certain he has Uncle Phil on his speed dial. The more important calls are from AEG accounting people. As for [strike]Igor[/strike] Sunil, he genuflects before the dollar and serves as high priest for the first church of TOWCBN, but otherwise he's an employee, nothing more. "Hey Mr A, you wanna dump 30 or 40 mil into an amatuerishly managed ship that looks like Celine Dion is warming up "My Heart Will Go On" as Leo feels up Kate out on the bow?" Is a lot different approach than "Hey, Mr A, how would you like to own some of the pieces of a new league?"
Diablo, I'm sorry but I see stuff like this as an unthinking extension of the enormous chip many USMNT/MLS fans carry on their shoulders as a result facing domestic indifference and international contempt for so long. It's completely unreasonable to expect people promoting a legitimate product, as they have every right to do, to qualify that promotion with statements such as "But remember, we're just talking about women here!" Do you really expect every reference to the WWC victory to stipulate it didn't involve men's teams? And please, anyone, explain to me how the absence of such a stipulation is automatically a slam against the USMNT? Only an imbecile would say: "the USWNT won in '99 and the USMNT didn't in '02, ergo the men suck." The logical response there is to note the speaker as an imbecile, not to despise WUSA.
Re: Re: Re: Foudy Repents! I'm just going to assume that you're tossing this pseudo-intellectual, quasi-mythical claptrap around because you're incapable of making the case that Foudy, et al were doing anything but arguing for the validity of their sport in its own right.
I enjoy watching and routing for U.S. Women's Team (the 1st goal against Sweden was as pretty a play as your likely to see) and sincerely hope the women's professional game survives the WUSA's demise But it is this kind of crap from USWNT fans that irritates USMNT fans. Just because the media equates the WWC and the WC doesn't mean that they are equal and any knowledgeable soccer fan knows that this simply not true. Winning the WC is by far and away the most difficult accomplishment in all of sports. Countries with immense talent pools, top professional leagues, and decades upon decades of tradition such as Spain and Holland have never won the WC. Holland didn't even qualify in 2002 despite a plethora of world class talent. By your criteria, Holland should not have the respect "around the world" that the USWNT team does? Any true soccer fan knows such a statement is ludicrous. This is not meant to disparage the USWNT or demean their achievement. They can only beat the competition that exists and winning any international title is an amazing feat. But the competition the women face is not even in the same universe as competition the men face. A game played at best on a semi-professional level in a small handful of countries, can't be compared to a game that is the #1 sport and national passion of 80% of the countries on earth. The media may not understand the USMNT’s quarter final run in 2002 is a comparable achievement to the USWNT’s 1999 victory (if anything the men's accomplishment was more difficult and certainly more unexpected). But supposedly knowledgeable USWNT fans to say the men have accomplished nothing until they win the WC is just spectacularly off the mark and those who continue to make such statements are either ignorant or biased. You can pick whichever applies to you.
I don't see any such equation made in the post you cited. Nor do I recall seeing, at all, much less consistently, such an equation being made by The Media. The USWNT gets credit for winning the WWC, not the WC. People don't consistently stop and explain the difference for the same reason they don't say "Serena Williams won Wimbledon But Only The Women's Title Not The Men's Because In Case You Didn't Realize It There's No Way She Could Have Since The Only Reason She Won What She Won Was Because She Played Other Women...Not I Repeat Not Men."
Never seen one. Proper response? Check the "imbecile sighted" box on your score card. Incidentally, how many have you seen? Enough to generalize about a whole generation of USWNT fans?
I'm pretty sure they were an item in the Eurosport catalog at one point, along with "Girls Rule, Boys Drool".
QUOTE]Originally posted by bungadiri I don't see any such equation made in the post you cited. Nor do I recall seeing, at all, much less consistently, such an equation being made by The Media. The USWNT gets credit for winning the WWC, not the WC. People don't consistently stop and explain the difference for the same reason they don't say "Serena Williams won Wimbledon But Only The Women's Title Not The Men's Because In Case You Didn't Realize It There's No Way She Could Have Since The Only Reason She Won What She Won Was Because She Played Other Women...Not I Repeat Not Men." [/QUOTE] Appearantly you don't read very thoroughly
No, but there are a significant number. T-shirt in the Metro on Sunday (paraphrase): "Boys are OK ... (flip to back) our team needs waterboys"
You need to get out to Tournaments more. And yes, enough to generalize. Especially when you call them on it. They seriously believe it. <edit>OK, girls believe it until about 15 or so and the physical gap between boys and girls widens. Still, I've had my U12 team last year totally humiliate a U17 girls team that won at Schwan's the summer before. Boy, were those girls P-O'd.
I don't know who said it was 500+ million, but that has to be inaccurate, for the following reasons: 1) In year 5, MLS claimed $250 million in losses, in a lawsuit in which it was in the league's interest to maximize its claimed losses. This was probably done by including asset depreciation and the like in the loss column. 2) Any new league's most significant costs are in its first season; also MLS attendance was at its lowest in year 5. Any claim that MLS lost more money per year in the last three years than in the first five is definitely bogus. 3) Even stadium costs are iffy - with the sale of stadium rights, the Galaxy paid next to nothing for the Home Depot Center. Meanwhile, the WUSA likely lost significantly more than $100 million. At this point it is in their interest to understate their losses, as they are still trying to attract investors to bail them out. They can do this by a similarly loose approach to counting revenues and expenses. Finally, when looking at "operating efficiency", keep in mind that MLS always had more teams than the WUSA, and more players on each team.
Maybe some of this "girls rule boys drool" stuff is a response to having our athletic endeavors denigrated at all levels by all sorts of men and boys. Maybe it's not initial aggression, but defensive posturing brought on by decades of ridicule and denigration. That, yes, continues to this day. You don't have to go very far -- in fact, you don't even have to go off these threads -- to find aggressive male animosity against women's sports simply because women play them and women who play sports simply because they play sports. There are two side to this coin, and the "boys rule, girls drool" side has been around longer and continues with little diminshment in vehemence, although perhaps in numbers of adherents, as far as I can see.
Oh, I am hurt. I am oppressed. Call a lawyer quick (wait I am a lawyer). Sue NOW, sue the liberal press, sue Beau Dure. A woman made fun of me.
No, I read this pretty well. For example I noticed the statement you eliminated: While I don’t pretend to read Binchy’s mind, I see this as a comment on US sports culture including much of the media that covers it (and the shortsightedness thereof), not an equation of the WWC with the WC in terms of difficulty (because, after all, Binchy’s statement explicitly eliminates that possibility). The fact that the US media overlooks the difference in the relative difficulty of the 2 tournaments is fault of the media, not that of observers pointing it out, nor of the women who won the most competitive tournament available to them. The tennis analogy as I used it speaks to the invidious expectation that the USWNT’s success in the WWC be qualified simply because it was a women’s tournament.
Well then, sue her too! It's bad enough we taught them to read, you mean you allowed her to go to graduate school too! I am so oppressed. Especially by 12 year old girls wearing silly tee-shirts. My manhood has been destroyed.
RIGHT ON SISTER!!!!! All these centuries of oppression at the heels of the male beast give you every right to behave like asses. It's not just a small group of insignificant mouthbreathers who "make fun" of you - don't let them kid you - it's all of this male dominated society that's to blame for your entirely justified attitudes. No progress whatever has been made with any of the stereotypes society has been dealing with. It's all a myth - we still live in 1956 and Spring Byington is waxing the litchen floor in pearls and heels. Donna Reed has a roast in the oven. The Beave will be home any minute and you'd better have his bed made and a nice snack. When does it end? When will societal degradation instigated by neanderthal club-wielders let women take their proper place in society?