The 2016 version of this tournament was also in Texas. Frisco had the USA group stage while BBVA had the other group and the final rounds. So this time Houston actually has fewer games.
I should clarify. Houston has fewer games in the tournament this time but does have more USWNT games, 3 compared to the 2 last time. Those are group stage games compared to the knockout ones last time.
A ha ha, a ha ha - showing their true colors http://www.yahoo.com/sports/youre-not-cutting-me-out-of-that-upside-rapinoe-uswnt-players-upset-with-new-nwsl-pay-guideline-191011758.html
From that article: “Immediately people were like, ‘Um, you’re telling me we're opening up the money but I’m stuck?’” Megan Rapinoe tells Yahoo Sports. “‘We’re gonna be here for seven years, and then you’re gonna bring in whoever for $200K and I’m gonna be making what I'm making now?’ It's just not fair.” One of the odd byproducts of Title IX all these decades on is that there is now a part of our nation that believe life somehow must always be "fair" on all fronts. Nature itself speaks of mountains up high and valleys down low, are we to level the mountains and thus fill up the valleys with them to make our planet an equal, level planet? Of course not. It was not fair to cut men's sports programs to make sure there would be new women's teams in their place but this is what happened in the70's and on with many colleges and universities. Certainly it is not fair that if the Designated Player commands a higher salary then some pro soccer player that has not trained as hard or is not of the same skill should somehow receive via "fairness" the exact same pay. Thus what is the incentive as an athlete when younger to strive so hard to train and work when someone who does half the effort still gets to be paid what you worked so hard to earn. Is this fair to the boy or girl that trained much harder when young and aspiring to be a professional athlete one day??? Some people need to get over themselves on what it means to be a paid athlete. There is also another "or else" line from Rapinoe that I bolded.
What I love about this whole situation is that the prior USWNT CBA prevented any NWSl player from being paid more than any of them and now the shoe is on the other foot. They Don’t like contract provisions being used against them, although it is probably a moot point
I mean, come on, you want to rip up the deal you just did to try and get money effectively transferred from the men’s pool to the women’s pool (because the USSF gets far less from FIFA for women’s World Cup) and you are surprised the men aren’t vocal about advocating for it? Who are these Title IX princesses? http://sports.yahoo.com/ashlyn-harris-calls-out-usmn-ts-silence-on-uswnt-lawsuit-equal-pay-its-the-f-thing-thats-missing-164220622.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=tw
Yeah, I saw this from yesterday and this woman's goalie Harris perhaps could go about airing her grievances with not getting equal pay in a bit more informed and outlined complaint. Over drawing a straight line between the Men's National Team players silence as some vote of "no support."
Exactly, it's not with us or against us. I'm not against womens soccer, I just truly and completely don't care about it.
So the NWSL wants to be more independent and shed itself from USSF - but then demands more money from US Soccer!!!!! Who are these people??? http://sports.yahoo.com/sources-us-soccer-denies-nwsl-owners-funding-request-but-offers-counterproposal-143108951.html
It is strange, they act as if there is a huge demand for women's soccer. They literally cannot support themselves and then make demands. US Soccer is only funding them to promote the sport and to keep a certain noisy faction quiet. Although the latter is never happy, or quiet anyway.
A lot of that noise stems from the mindset these female players developed while enjoying the wonder years of women's soccer funding back at their college campus. Women's soccer gets terrific funding at the collegiate level. The travel, accommodations, stadiums and in built student body fan support is all well in place. From Div-I to Div-III to NAIA ball. However, once a soccer player leaves this realm, reality sets in at the pro women's soccer level where the funding is there but with many real world stipulations that fluster said former college soccer player. Honestly, for the level of play put on display by American soccer women and the foreign women that play here, they should indeed have more fans in the stands as the play is quality. However, as we all know, professional women sports in our nation just does not have that pull as spectator sports. With so many options in pro and college sports just for men, women's pro soccer is always left wondering. So it will be tough to be "happy" in this world.
This is an excellent point, the women struggle to deal with the economic reality that at the professional level (profit motivated) they aren’t treated as well as they are in college when they are completely subsidized.
What drives me nuts is that it is just gender driven. There are a lot of sports that don't pay much. How much does a water polo athlete make? Why do MMA fighters generally make a lot less than boxers? J.B Mauney, arguably the best bull rider of all time has earned around 6 mil in his almost 20 year career. The point is simple, get eyeballs and you get paid. Many womens sports simply cannot achieve that. It is not a vaste conspiracy working against them, it isn't the system, it is the market pure and simple.
There's an old adage: you have to spend money to make money. Since it's foundation, MLS has lost massive amounts of money. However, nobody fusses too much about that so a concerted effort has been made to market and build a fanbase. Ungodly sums have been wasted in men's sports on things like XFL, AAF, etc, etc. Nobody bats an eyelash. Globally, very little has been spent on promoting women's soccer. Most of what has been spent has happened in the last 4 years or so, and surprise, surprise this summer's Women's World Cup was the most viewed in history around the world (over 1 billion viewers), women's leagues in Europe and Mexico are filling stadiums, etc. But let's come back to MLS. From your statement, I assume you are blissfully unaware of how USSF has funded MLS over the years. Most MLS teams hemorrhage cash. The only way that MLS has been able to stay afloat has been, a) expansion fees, b) Soccer United Marketing, aka SUM. Since 2004, SUM has had all commercial rights to US Soccer. USSF has never bid those out. No competition, just a sweetheart deal for SUM. SUM has made piles of cash out of those rights. SUM is owned by MLS. Through SUM, MLS has also been able to bundle their own TV rights with US Soccer TV rights to increase the value of MLS TV rights. The last domestic deal for US Soccer/MLS was done for $720 million over 8 years. MLS pays USSF $30 million per year. I'll save you the math - MLS nets $480 million over 8 years on that deal. Most of that $480 million constitutes a subsidy by USSF in the favor of MLS. USSF could keep their rights for themselves, bid out those rights and make a lot more money. MLS would make a lot less, teams would spend a lot less and the league would be nowhere near what it is today. USSF does this because a strong domestic league is good for USSF. Same thing applies to the women's game. The USWNT over the past 6 years or so has been the cash cow for USSF. Continuing to be a global force requires a strong domestic league which is why USSF has contributed to NWSL to date, although only a fraction of what they have contributed to MLS. What the league has asked for in terms of support in taking over operations is a fraction of the tune to which USSF has subsidized MLS. NWSL can't replicate SUM as USWNT rights are rolled up into SUM. NWSL TV rights stand alone separate from everything else.
You’ve made a lot of generous assumptions with your figures as to how valuable the US Soccer TV rights are. Remember, the World Cup rights are sold by FIFA, which leaves friendlies, home qualifies, and other miscellaneous competitions available. You must forget the era leading to 2010 and 2014 where a bunch of US men’s road hex games were not on mainstream outlets because they weren’t worth anything to ESPN or Fox to buy the right to and they were on PPV or BeIn If the NWSL rights are so valuable standalone then why would the owners not be licking their chops to sell them on the open market?
Ungodly sums have been spent because they see a potential based on history. The last womens league was owned by corporations, who have shareholders they are accountable to by law. MLS can lose money because it is largely owned by privately rich people, who can lose money and claim it as a loss on their other investments. Also, to say that womens soccer has never been promoted tells me one thing about you, either you were too young to remember the year 1999 or you have forgotten. The media went insane for the WNT and 90k people filled Giants stadium for their game. They were promoted heavily, late night T.V appearances, local news, cereal boxes, Mia with M.J. Look, I'm not against women's soccer, I would never deliberately stand in their way, I simply do not care and I get resentful when some people come at me with an undertone that that is somehow a character flaw within me. I get just a whiff of that from your reply but this being the internet I'll concede that I could be a bit sensitive to it. I'm not blissfully unaware of soccernomics, I just don't think that people see a future for womens soccer. Obviously there has been a market for womens MMA, and wrestling so it seems that the fans do decide the financials. Again, it's not a conspiracy, itbjust doesn't sell.
Potential based on what history? Do you know how many men's leagues and teams folded before MLS? We're 25+ years into MLS and it still can't survive without SUM and expansion fees. It's a giant ponzi scheme. I'm not sure what you mean by corporations owning the last women's league. Ownership of WPS was pretty similar to NWSL and MLS. A lot of the NWSL owners owned WPS teams. Most WPS team owners were individuals with the exception of LA, which was owned by AEG same as the LA Galaxy is owned by AEG. WPS would likely still be around if not for the disputes with Dan Borislow, who bought Washington Freedom, moved them to Florida and renamed them magicJack. The league basically folded to get Borislow out of the picture and then restarted as NWSL two years later with Chicago Red Stars, Sky Blue, Boston Breakers and Western New York Flash carrying over from WPS into NWSL. As for 1999, I watched the games in bars. The media getting excited about a Women's World Cup victory in the United States isn't the same as a concerted effort to invest in or market women's soccer anymore than the media going gaga over Mary Lou Retton winning gold is the same as investing in women's gymnastics. It's just a temporary nationalistic pride that comes with a national team doing well. It's also why I did not bring up the TV viewership that the USWNT specifically had in 2015 or in 2019 during the Women's World Cup. Any time a national team fares well it is going to draw big numbers and then many of those people will completely forget 6 months later. To your specific issue, I don't really care whether someone watches women's soccer or not. As someone that is an avid fan of many leagues around the world and of soccer in all its forms, I don't understand it, but to each their own. What does ruffle my feathers is when people that don't have a big background in it say things like, "it can't be successful", etc, etc without digging into the history of not only lack of support but outright efforts to suppress the sport. Take England. Women's soccer got kick started in the 1880s. By the 1920s, women's soccer games were drawing crowd equal or greater to men's soccer games. Of course, as is always the case, then a bunch of dudes got worried about empowerment of women, blah, blah, blah and decided that women playing soccer was not a good thing and the dudes in charge of the FA decided to ban women's soccer. That ban remained in place until 1969. That's almost 50 years of people being told women shouldn't play soccer. So, ban gets lifted but social beliefs and norms have already been hardened. It's only very recently that attitudes have started to change and real investment has begun. The FA-WSL is rapidly turning into the best women's league in the world. In the past 12 months women's teams have filled men's stadiums. Sponsorship dollars have started to pour in. Men's teams almost uniformally have started up women's teams as they can see the opportunity. But underlying reason for my response is I assume that the start of the conversation was the NWSL ask for a funding commitment from USSF for 7-8 years as they become independent. My point is USSF role (and interest) is growing soccer in this country and that dollar request is a drop in the bucket compared to the subsidies USSF has provided for MLS, so I don't really understand the issue other than we have one guy here who is a woman hater and will only ever say negative things about women's sports and women in general. Alternatively, separate out USWNT rights and give those to NWSL Media. But that will hurt MLS as these days USWNT rights are more attractive than USMNT rights (except for when the USMNT plays Mexico).
WUSA - failed with massive losses after 99 World Cup WPS - failed with the AEG pulling out first (seeing they couldn’t profit) NWSL - lasting the longest thus far but can’t survive without direct subsidy from US Soccer If you want to argue that MLS can’t do well without expansion fees and SUM revenues, that’s a fair take. But the same holds true on the NWSL side, can’t survive without a direct subsidy and not even sure they can generate money from expansion fees. MLS is addicted to expansion fees but at least they can sell those new units to new investors. Your argument reeks of an academic “but for” qualifier that seems like a stretch to justify the continued existence of a women’s professional league in this county
There is a lot here and I appreciate the detailed response. I was referring to the league that came in right after the World Cup in 99, the WUSA I think it was called. It was started by either the owner or founder of the Discovery Channel. It was owned by cable companies, my point was that the type of ownership means different reactions. I could have been clearer looking back, my apologies. History meaning worldwide, demographic trends etc.. As for your take on promotion I whole heartedly disagree. Sure there is a temporary spike in attention but isn't that the the point of promotion? But my point here is that it's not about hating women, it's more about disliking a certain few of them. They are corrosive and offend probably 40 percent or more of the population. They are corrosive and just bring more tribalism. I suppose that can be whatever, but sports bring us together and they used it for other purposes. So perhaps, by promoting their fake "pay gap", they hurt promotion of women's soccer. Because it does feel like cause and support of it seems to me to be a purity test for one side of the political spectrum. Just play the game and represent the country. The star of the team kneels for the anthem, hates the President and half the country. Yeah, this is healthy for us, just what we needed. I just want to watch soccer, I don't need or want to associate with faux warriors against made up demons of facism, haters of gays, and women. I just want to watch and enjoy soccer and escape the problems of the world, real or imagined for 2 hours. Now, I'm not saying every person who enjoys the Dash is that, but plenty of them are.
With women's soccer its impossible to separate because over the last 4 years their entire team persona is about a "cause" or "equal pay" and little to do with the actual competition. The competition in the NWSL must suck because outside of 2-3 markets the attendance sucks unless there is a USWNT cause link to a game. There's almost no balanced articles because all of the writers are left-wing liberal writers with quite a few lesbian writers (that's not an exaggeration) who don't report any news, just pump out USWNT propaganda.
The strained arguments and mental gymnastics that these women's soccer supporters go thru to pretend this is some sort of booming Houston team is just laughable. They had what, 2,500 folks at the games this year? (The figures are clearly fudged). The Dynamo seem to be giving away Dash tickets with every ticket package purchase. The Dash were nothing more that Chris Canetti's "Trading Places"-style bet on women's soccer because the Dynamo couldn't fill dates at the stadium and he wanted a team for his daughters or something where he could be a big shot (hence the trade for Carli Lloyd) since on the men's side he'd never have the respect of the soccer industry hardcores. If you thought twitter was a good barometer of things, the NWSL would be the most popular league in the world and the Dash would be selling out. The social media echo chamber is not reality - Canetti never figured that out trying to win twitter instead of making shrewd moves.
Correct! The odd thing about our Dash as the club compares to other pro women's clubs here and abroad is that just like our Dynamo the potential is there. On all fronts the game is strong here in the South. Women's side of the sport. The talent level from our neck of the woods is incredible! As an old inner city coach I have been able to as well "deputize" in for the head girls team here and there over the many years and it never ceases to amaze me of one solid truism with the women's game. It is this, American girls have solidified association football as their "go to" sport. Thus, the Tier 1 female is going long on soccer. And when this happens in an overly athletically inclined nation like ours, iron sharpens iron and we get really talented individual youth females who then form very competitive soccer teams. All this by the time this massive player pool is reaching the U-19 level. I.e. high school Varsity ball and the club scene equivalent. While their touch and turns might be quote un quote slower than men's, the intent to play direct and almost zero theatrics show the viewer a brand of soccer that is easy on the eye. Combine our talent in our city, the numbers of girls that play with the money that our club has on hand to invest, combine this to make the correct move and really market our Dash. Promote the women's side to the core audience that will listen! And not unlike our Dynamo issues, make this club a club and not some corner store looking to make a profit while peeling back on every level of investment in player development and commitment to winning. Our club can and should have a very competitive team in the league!
The Dynamo are selling all these 4-packs to the opener that includes the Dash opener and two other early season Dynamo games, so take whatever attendance they announce for the Dash opener with a grain of salt. It also seems like Dynamo STHs get some free Dash tickets as well, which they will count as "paid attendance"