Agreed. One of the fun things on this board was the discussion of the Aly Wagner - Angela Hucles trade. More autonomy means more aggressive management of player personnel -- one of the fun things for fans to follow. That leads into one other point -- treat WUSA as a sports league with a year-long storyline. I attended many WUSA games and do not recall ever hearing an out-of-town score announced. Get people involved in the whole season, not just a one-game experience. For example, the WUSA "matchday" program, while it carried league standings, inexplicably did not provide the season schedule of the home team. What was that? You can't age-discriminate. As long as Kristine Lilly can still play (and she shows no sign of slowing down much), she will have a place in a Division I league. But as a Charge fan, I can relate to your comment about your favorite Beat players. It seemed that players like Marinette Pichon, Jenny Benson, Kelly Smith, Erica Iverson and Stacey Tullock (I could keep going and going) were "our team," not celebrities, since we got to know them first as Charge players, not USWNT members.
Stadiums As addressed previously, the future of soccer in the USA is linked to teams building their own soccer facility. This is true for a women's league, MLS, and the A-League. This obviously requires a good deal of money, but this should be a key element when building a new women's league. If a fairly small city like Charleston can do it -- there is no reason why other communities could do the same. These stadiums don't have to be on a grand scale, but facilities in the 3,000 to 7,000 range would be suitable. Women's teams could work with A-League teams for instance and build these types of facilities. Building costs could be shared and the facility would get a lot of use during the summer months. During Fall/Spring stadium could be used for youth soccer, etc. To be honest, I don't really see this happening anytime soon. Most A-League teams are strapped for cash. There are only a handful of franchises with the resources to even consider this. Women's pro soccer will probably emerge from MLS a few years from now once they have their new stadiums built. This would be my women's league: Women's Soccer League 1. Atlanta Odyssey 2. Boston Beacons 3. Charleston Rovers 4. Carolina Vipers 5. Columbus Canaries 7. Philadelphia Furies (reference to Greek mythology -- Erinyes -- also a link to NASL's Fury) 8. Richmond Invaders 9. Rochester Ravens 10. Washington Wolves (or keep Freedom)
As far as out-of-town scores goes...we in San Jose tried to schedule a recap of other action sometime during our games...but we couldn't come up with a consistent time during the match to announce the scores. We tried near the end of halftime but found that sometimes (beyond anyone's control) that the halftime entertainment would run long. Then we tried to schedule it as a drop-in during the second half...but the announcement ran too long and distracted from the action on the field (either that or there were too many goals, substitutions, and other sponsor hoo-ha to deal with) so it didn't work during the run of play. But I agree with your statement...each fixture has a context to the overall league and the overall season. It's not just a nice day out at the park watching some nice girls play some nice soccer.
About TV...I'm not the most tech-savvy person around, so I can't predict what might emerge over the next few years. Who knows...maybe in 2-3 years, most people will have high-speed internet hookups, and WUSA2 can broadcast their games over the internet, and have them displayed on TV. Barring something like that, the intrinsic interest in watching WUSA2 on TV isn't going to be worth the cost of getting the matches on TV.
Here is my scenario for WUSA2. 1) Hand-in-hand parterships with US Soccer and FIFA from the very beginning. It's brave to have the "Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves" ethic, but you need partners. 2) Hand-in-hand partnerships with the equipment companies. Reebok was never a participant in the WUSA, yet it is rich enough to outfit every single NBA and NFL team until 2010. Nike never did a WUSA commercial, and it outfitted its teams (Atlanta, Washington, New York) with three-year-old DriFit kits. Need to get adidas, Nike, Puma, Reebok, and, heck, even a foreign make like Lotto or Athletica involved. 3) Get responsible ownership groups with more than $500K credit (more like $2 million!) in their names. 4) Get an infrastructure deal in place for each franchise where a soccer-specific stadium is owned or operated by each team by Year Two. Make these SSSs expandable; If the League grows, so can these facilities.The SAS Stadium model is good. 5) If need be, make deals with the Devil when it comes to sponsorship. Philip Morris, Anheuser Busch, RU-486, Trojan-Enz, Golden Palace, Chico's Bail Bonds, whatever. 6) Do not allow teams to take a step onto the field until their books are balanced BEFORE THE FIRST BALL IS EVEN KICKED. 7) Black out home games unless it is the national Game of the Week on FSW, ESPN, etc. 8) Eight teams with a parking lot in the middle is unacceptable. My structure for WUSA2 is: EAST NY/NJ (Harrison) Boston Washington Philadelphia CENTRAL Columbus St. Louis Atlanta Carolina WEST San Diego San Jose Portland Los Angeles (Carson) 9) Get a transportation subsidy from a (what a concept!) an airline as a corporate partner. Yes, the airlines are feeling a pinch, but Southwest gets great airtime on NFL games. 10) Market to everybody, not 10-to-16-year old girls. They have no disposable incomes, and their tastes are very fickle. 11) Don't be afraid to market your stars WITH YOUR TEAMS. Remember that the inaugural game was "Mia vs. Brandi?" Not "Mia and the Freedom vs. Brandy and the Cyber Rays"? The latter is an example of how the NBA became The Marketing Leader In Sports. 12) Avoid the perception of competition with MLS. Partner with them if you can. Avoid broadcasts in the same timeslot. Run as many doubleheaders as possible.
How would you run WUSA2? How would I run WUSA2? Conservatively; staying within the budget! I think I'd change the name too, so that it is not pronounced like an acronym that says "wussy."
I'd immediately sign Luis Hernandez Maybe he'd break double digits in the goal scoring department and bring in the Mexican crowd.
There has to be a way to do it do that some costs are shared. I tend to think that pretty much implies working with MLS in some form or other.
I had put out my division set up before with the teams and all on the WUSA.com boards but I forget the cities. Most of the ones that you all have said. But I would add 2 more: Edmonton and Vancouver. Maybe a Toronto/Hamilton team which would be a relative derby with a Rochester team. But it had 20 teams in a West/East setup. Divided by the Mississippi of course. And I thought of reasonable schedule ideas. The Texas team could play at Denver on a Saturday, Wednesday at home but don't have them in Portland for the next Saturday. "As long as Kristine Lilly can still play (and she shows no sign of slowing down much), she will have a place in a Division I league" No kidding. Charmaine Hooper being another great example. Goalkeepers being the more traditional example as well. "Get a transportation subsidy from a (what a concept!) an airline as a corporate partner. Yes, the airlines are feeling a pinch, but Southwest gets great airtime on NFL games." Especially one of those budget airlines. Not least of all because they are do good business regionally.
Get rid of foreigner limit entirely. It might work as a global league like NHL. It increases the level of competition gets fans support from overseas.
WUSA 2 needs to start as a 2nd Division league, like the A-League. Have 8 teams (Include 1 Canadian team too) and play each other twice for the season. The season should be played between April and July. Season Salary (for 4 months should be $10,000 minimum and $15,000 maximum per player. and a salary cap of $250,000 per team) # of players allowed per team should be 18-20. Ticket prices per game to be $12-$20. Plus local Sponsors and hopefully 1-2 National Sponsor will help foot the bills. Also, find stadiums which are small or cheap to lease, but have a good location for the fans. NO MORE RFK and the expensive Spartan Stadium. It can be done! Will it be? It will depend on the Echoes of founding members.
The sad thing about WUSA is that in many respects they flushed a ton of money down the drain. Imagine if they would have used that money to build a few SSS facilities (5,000 seat range). In regards to the future of women's soccer. A league should consider second tier cities and stay away from big markerts like NY.
I disagree. Your following comes from media centers. Even if you have to do a LA Lakers (Inglewood for many years) or a Cleveland Cavaliers (Richfield, Ohio for many years), you need to tie your sport in with major cities. Even if Seattle has to play in Tacoma!
Yet somehow, Arena Football has followed the second-tier city approach to financial success. Well, at least they've been in business for about 20 years.
Might not be a bad idea, but I doubt it. I don't think American investors are going to buy into a league in which a large number of the players are from other countries. Now you could get investors from other countries, but I can see then how they would demand parity. Say a Japanese investor, or a UK investor, would say, "We want so many of the players to be from our country, in proportion to the amount we invest." I think the idea of no-foreigner limit is based on something like the EPL or MLB where you don't have to worry about salary caps and quotas on players. That's great if you're one of the teams like the Yankees or ManU with deep pockets, but hurts teams like the San Diego Padres who don't have that kind of money to throw around.
Wrong. Set the foreigner limit at two so more American talent developes. I have no desire to see repeats of this year's semi's.
I totally disagree....it should be Hooters instead!?!? p.s. Can you imagine the male turn out from ages 10 to 90 if the players dressed as provactively like the waitresses!?!?!? A league that would rival the NFL then!?!?! LOL
Wrong. What's a lot more important than hardware trophy is survival of woman soccer and jobs for people like Cat Reddick. The majority of players will still be American. American youth system for women are way ahead the rest of the world.
What I would do is put all those women in MLS since they are considered american heroes. Besides MLS would get a hell lot of attention from the media.
I disagree. Arena started in large cities (Chicago Bruisers, Pittsburgh Gladiators) and had to go places like Grand Rapids, Albany, and Iowa to get "cult status." The latter two franchises were rewarded for their many years of toil by having their franchises relocated. Albany went to Indianapolis. and Iowa was relegated from the AFL to af2. Since the NFL invests heavily in the AFL (primarily as an outlet for finding quarterbacks), you now see teams in Los Angeles, Denver, Dallas, etc. I don't see it lasting, IMHO.
Which is pretty much irrelevant to the success or failure of a women's league. I question whether the league would be swamped with foreigners, since the pay after the top 4-5 (or maybe less) players on a team would require players to have 2nd jobs.