Seven observations and two conclusions based on about 500 posts in two recent threads about women's soccer: 1. Julie Foudy may have said that she didn't want MLS piggybacking on WUSA attendance, but no one can provide any documentary proof despite the fact that everyone believes they read it in a paper or online. 2. A BigSoccer poster claims that Foudy told him "something like" the piggyback quote, but doesn't think it is a big deal. I quote: Couldn't have said it better myself. 3. In the immediate aftermath of the '99 WWC, women's soccer looked like the Bright New Thing. By contrast, MLS was at its lowest ebb in 1999-2000. It seems laughably optimistic in retrospect, but I'm sure that some people believed at the time that women's soccer could succeed while men's soccer was struggling; hence, some context for the alleged "piggyback" comment. Conclusion #1: Even if you accept the validity of the "piggyback" comment, and even if you believe that this was the prevalent attitude among everyone involved with the founding of WUSA, you still have to explain why a belief (wildly optimistic, in retrospect) that WUSA could succeed on its own or even that it would be bigger than MLS constitutes a hostile attitude towards MLS. 4. Don Garber claims that MLS offered to cooperate or merge operations with WUSA and WUSA refused. 5. No one here has any concrete idea of what the terms of the proposed co-operation would have been. 6. People's assumption that greater cooperation between MLS and WUSA would necessarily have been to WUSA's benefit is therefore just that: an assumption. To believe the prevailing BigSoccer story (MLS offers hand of friendship to struggling sister league WUSA, WUSA slaps it away) requires a belief that MLS was necessarily making a good-faith offer of help that WUSA rejected despite its own self-interest. 7. People point to the "piggyback" comment as evidence for the WUSA brain trust's irrational hostility towards MLS (or men in general) and thus as an explanation for why they didn't want to cooperate, despite the "piggyback" comment's weaknesses as evidence for anti-MLS hostility (see Conclusion #1). Conclusion #2: People point to the failure to cooperate with MLS when MLS supposedly offered its help as the prime piece of evidence that WUSA sees MLS as a competitor to destroy. But in order to believe that WUSA rejected cooperation out of hostility to MLS, you must first believe that WUSA is hostile to MLS, for which the primary piece of evidence is their refusal to cooperate with MLS. It is, in other words, a circular argument of the "when did you stop beating your wife" variety. In order for any of the evidence which underpins people's belief that WUSA is out to get MLS to make any sense, you must first believe that WUSA is out to get MLS. I say all of this not because I love WUSA or Julie Foudy--I'm pretty totally indifferent to them both--but rather because I'm puzzled by the world of the WUSA haters. None of the things that people have such bugs up their asses about make any sense unless you buy into the a priori assumption that women's soccer (except as an adjunct to men's soccer) is a terrible, terrible thing.
That picture is just too damn funny. I don't care if you're a man or woman, gay or straight, black or white, religious or atheist, athletic or weak, etc.... If you take a picture with a giant donut around your head, you deserve a little bit of ridicule. That's all I care to say on this issue.
Because the last one was long on pictures and Title IX discussion, and short on succinct summation like the one above.
"Who took the gem out of your donut, Bailey?" "You did Julie, you took the gem out of my fvcking donut."
I wish there was a narrower version of that photo available so I didn't have to scroll to the right every time.
Dude, I'm as wide as I think I can go. Oooh, actually I just changed the resolution. That hurts my eyes. I'll scroll, thank you.
In one of the previous threads some links from like 2000 and 2001 were provided from soccertimes.com and and soccernet.com. I had forgotten all about reading these articles but both of them pointed towards WUSA not wanting any part of WUSA and having a negative attitude towards MLS. I knew I had a reason for not liking WUSA. I just forgot why.
You're right. It was rude of me to bump down a "Move San Jose" thread and a "Beckham to MLS" thread. I simply don't know what came over me.
Re: Re: in the matter of The People v. WUSA, Foudy, et al. http://www.soccertimes.com/wagman/2000/may23.htm And there it is. But, again, here's my point: the only way you know that MLS's intentions towards the fledgling women's soccer league were honorable is if you were a fly on the conference-room wall. Everything else is just an assumption. You picked the assumption that allows you to interpret the article according to your preconceived notions. Go figure.
Godot22 read the article from soccernet.com. The one about the in your face attitude that WUSA has taken towards MLS. It might seem all the same, but I don't go around hating stuff for no reason, just like most of the people on this board. Something had to happen for me to become anti-WUSA.
WUSA is to MLS as (the defunct women's basketball league) is to NBA. WNBA survives because they are riding on NBA's deep pockets. But they do not play at the same time. If there were to be a true W-MLS, following this, the W-MLS would start after Thanksgiving and finish by the first day of Spring. Besides Women have more body fat than men, mainly b/c of the boobs.
Hmm. Women running around outside in the wintertime wearing thin shirts. Might have an upside. No competition with ESPN2, of course....what did you THINK I meant?
If there is an animosity among MLSers towards the WUSA, I submit that it's most likely due to at least a perception, if not a correct assumption, that the women's soccer boosters, with Foudy as their head cheerleader, are in it for selfish reasons -- and not the betterment or improvement of soccer in the United States. Following their actions after the 1999 Women's World Cup, wherein they boycotted a exhibition tour; called Hank Steinbrecher and the USSF sexist -- or at least intimated it and let their willing acomplices in Newsday, USA Today and at the AP, make the actual accusation; and extorted a couple million dollars out of the federation (which in turn forced the federation to raise fees on youth and amateur players), it's a little tough for some to view them sympathetically and and give them credibility when the make statements that it's all for the ``good of the game'' (little slap at FIFA there!) The federation didn't make a dime off the '99 World Cup, and in fact, the women got an extra half a million dollar bonus from the profits, money that should have gone to the US Soccer Foundation! They start the WUSA, making rather insulting statements at MLS, starting a league that further divides an already a relatively small soccer market. If you're in Atlanta, for example, you could go see the Atlanta Silverbacks, or go see the Beat. Does anybody want to really debate which league -- or team -- plays better soccer? In terms of pure soccer, the A-League is clearly the better option. It's faster and better technically and tactically! The surrounding stuff, atmosphere and the like, probably isn't. Politics gets dragged in when you hear the phrase, girls need role models too. Well, who do you want your daughter to emulate? If you had the chance for your kid, son or daugther, to see the Brazilian national team every week, you'd probably opt for that over the Dallas Burn. That's not a slap at the Burn, but if you want your kid to see the highest level and to strive toward it, you hafta pick Brazil. And if you have the choice between MLS, or even the A-League for your son or daughter, on soccer reasons alone, you'd pick the men. (Side note, I'm taking my 5-year-old niece to a WUSA game next week, because at least she knows who the Beat is!) If a little girl HAS to watch women play, you're raising a little misandrist (look it up!), which I'm sure some think there is at LEAST a hint of in the WUSA. The WUSA is playing in the summer, with its TV games directly opposite MLS. For the average person, if you have an MLS and a WUSA team in your market, you're asking them to chose which team to support financially. If it's on TV, you're asking them to chose again, which divides the ratings and makes it look worse for BOTH! The USL has had a women's league since 1995. Granted it, you couldn't make a living at it but it was a place to play. Instead, the WUSA insisted on their own league, taking potential investors, sponsors and fans away from MLS, which has a better chance of survival -- since no women's professional team sports league has ever reached the level they're trying to achieve, splitting the market, and slowing, if not hurting, soccer from reaching the level of acceptance as a spectator sport we presumably all would like to see. I know there is a body of thought out there, of which Don Garber is a part of, that believes anything that expands soccer's awareness helps MLS. I think that's a bit naieve, since if you'd only go to see a women's game -- and not a soccer fan, you're a women's soccer fan. In Foudy's case -- and others like her, with her/their stand on the recent Title IX issue, it only reinforces beliefs that her/their motives are incredibly selfish. And selfish doesn't usually engender a whole lot of credibility, or friendly emotions.
But you know what? MLS on the tube is faster and better still. And European and South American and Mexican games on TV are better than that. Nobody with an IQ greater than my hat size is going to an Atlanta Beat match thinking that it's the highest quality of soccer available to them. If you're under the impression that people follow sports teams and/or leagues simply because of their place on some sort of absolute standard of quality, you're sadly mistaken. The worst team in NFL Europe would soundly beat the best team in college football, but millions of people follow college football and virtually no one follows NFL Europe. If you asked football fans why they don't care about NFL Europe, a great many of them would say that it's because it's low-quality football played by a bunch of NFL rejects and never make the connection that they regularly watch lower-quality football played by teams populated by players who are, for the most part, more emphatically rejected by the NFL than anyone on an NFL Europe roster. They perceive relative high quality (or at least ignore low quality) because they're emotionally invested in college football. By the same token, I choose to not watch, say, German soccer on Fox Sports World. I am well aware that by any reasonable standard of quality, most of the teams in the Bundesliga are far superior to the teams I do watch. I make the viewing/buying decisions I make because I don't give a shit about the Bundesliga. In a pure soccer sense, Roberto Carlos is a better role model for my hypothetical daughter than Mia Hamm. But the people who say that "girls need role models too" aren't speaking in simple sporting terms. I would personally like my hypothetical daughter to know that if she really wants to be a professional athlete, that it's possible that she could do exactly that--that a woman playing a team sport at a high level for money is not as ridculous a notion as it was 20 years ago. I see nothing wrong with the notion of people supporting a team or a league because of politics. When politics divide fans of Barca and Real, or fans of Celtic and Rangers, or fans of Flamengo and Fluminense, it's considered part of the colorful world of international soccer. So you'll excuse me if it's not 100% clear why people buying tickets to a women's game instead of a men's game because of their political beliefs is an affront unto the Lord. If a little girl found women's soccer unappealing and men's soccer comparitively exciting, would she be a misogynist? Hell, does the fact that I am more or less uninterested in women's soccer make me a misogynist? Hells no. It's a consumer preference, no different than which brand of paper towels I buy. There's been no significant fall-off in attendance in shared WUSA/MLS markets since 2001. There's been no significant fall-off in attendance in MLS overall since 2001. There's been no significant fall-off in national TV ratings since 2001. WUSA/MLS doubleheaders attract bigger crowds than MLS games alone. Your theory may sound good, but the facts simply don't support it. Consider this your invitation to think harder. So, what you're saying is that the WUSA followed up on a surprisingly popular World Cup by establishing a professional league based on a core of World Cup players seperate from the existing USL structure two years later? What fools. Thank God MLS didn't make that mistake. If you'd only go to a women's game, you're not exactly hurting MLS, either, are you? What's really naive (look it up!) is the assumption that MLS and the USSF are selflessly looking out for soccer's best interests while WUSA and the big-name women players are only in it for the money. Without making this assumption, your entire story crumbles. Politics is fundamentally the clash of self-interests. The only way one could say that Foudy et al. are being especially selfish in a way that, say, minor men's sports coaches who would like to see Title IX gutted are not is if you believed that scarce athletic department resources fundamentally belong to male student-athletes and that Title IX takes a portion of these resources away from their rightful owners. I believe this is nonsense, obviously. Foudy and other advocates for her interpretation of Title IX are trying to get the best deal they can for women's sports. Football coaches are trying to get the best deal they can for football. Men's non-revenue sports are trying to get the best deal they can for their sports. This is how the system works. You expected otherwise?
Re: Re: in the matter of The People v. WUSA, Foudy, et al. I fail to see how this is a response to what you quoted.
Uh, how about... There is no need to "explain why a belief (wildly optimistic, in retrospect) that WUSA could succeed on its own or even that it would be bigger than MLS constitutes a hostile attitude towards MLS" [your words] if someone (Foudy in this case) comes right out and states their openly hostile attitude.
Godot22, You ask why so many have ill feelings toward WUSA/Foudy, you get an answer you don't like because you don't want to hear ANY answer, so you try to shoot the messenger. If the goal in this whole exercise as soccer fans is to get the game accepted within the mainstream of the American sports landscape, then dragging politics and selfish interests are NOT good. And while I don't expect people to act otherwise, YOU can't expect others to say, oh sure, that's OK. It's NOT OK. If Foudy and the WUSA want to act selfishly, they can do that. The rest of us do NOT have to endorse it. It's ripe for criticism, and rightly should be. This is not to suggest that MLS is infallible, or that those involved, including players, are not involved in it for their own selfish reasons. But it has the best chance to achieve soccer's general acceptance, which I believe should be goal. The WUSA, and the self-righteous comments of those like Foudy, harm that chance by dividing the soccer community. MLS attendance isn't down, but how much more would it be up? How much higher would MLS TV ratings be if the WUSA wasn't competing directly against it? How many of WUSA's sponsors would be MLS sponsors, which would make the league generally more acceptable by getting it more attention? It's simply illogical to think that two leagues have a better chance of survival than one. The MLSPA made the same argument in their ill-fated anti-trust suit and got laughed outta court by a jury in less than a day! But specifically to answer some of your points: The U.S. is not a particularly sophisticated market. There were media reports during the 1999 Women's World Cup, believe it or not, that Mia Hamm was going to get a tryout with the MetroStars. Some columnists suggested that we use our women's team to try to qualify for the men's World Cup, because the women were obviously better. So maybe your hat size is big (it's difficult to believe.) Getting back to the politics of it all, yeah, religion in the Celtic-Rangers rivalry can only be classified as a good thing. I guess we all need the potential for a destructive riot to be good soccer fans. The politics in Boca-River at times have been deadly. The rivallry may be good, but do you really believe supporting a particular team simply because of the politics is a good thing? And if you're only attending a men's or women's sporting event only because it's a women's game, or only becaue a men's game, then yeah, I think the argument for misogony/misandry can be made. The women's World Cup was SURPRISINGLY popular, but not relative to the 1994 World Cup. The women's world cup drew 660,000 fans. The men's 3.5 million -- about a 7-fold difference. As I said before, I don't think that MLS or the USSF are selfless, but they are following the best path to try to make soccer generally accepted as a spectator sport. The WUSA is at best, ill-timed. Yes, politics is a clash of self interests. My self interest, and apparently many others, is to see soccer as accepted as baseball, football, et al. If you're going to claim you're in it for some altruistic good, you'd better back up the claim with action. I don't see Julie Foudy or the WUSA doing that. I do see Phil Anschutz, Lamar Hunt and Robert Kraft backing up there words with about, by my last guestimate, nearly a half of a billion dollars. They're in it for a profit, but it sure isn't in any near term that I can see. And to digress onto Title IX, why are the atheltic departments the only departments at colleges subject to funding men and women at the same percentages as in the general population of the school? Why aren't nursing departments expected to have 45-50 percent male enrollment? Could it be men aren't as interested in a nursing career as women? Coaches of non-revenue male sports are upset because their programs -- many who had to turn away scores of potential athletes when they were around, are eliminated, but women's programs are added and can't find enough athletes to fill a roster. And when somebody suggests let's poll the student body to see what they're interested in, Foudy and cabal say NO! Maybe they know women aren't as interested in sports as men! Gee, there's a news flash! OBVIOUSLY, you started the thread with your mind already made up that there are no legitimate reasons for having ill feelings toward Foudy and/or the WUSA. And OBVIOUSLY, they're political in nature. I don't begrudge anybody from wanting to play at the highest level they can. I just don't think it should be guaranteed as a birthright, especially at someone else's expense. As as a long-suffering soccer fan, who watched and covered men's soccer since the early 1980s and the women's program since the mid-to-late 1980s, who has endured countless abuse at the hands of editors and fellow sports writers, my ambition is to see soccer seen in this country as something more than a reason to cut up oranges and a way to tire out the kids. At this time, I see the WUSA as an obstacle to that for the reasons listed above and before. Heap on that the self-righteousness of those like Foudy, and it's easy to develop an animosity. You apparently have political reasons for overlooking all that has been mentioned. But if you REALLY want to understand why the animosity exists (which ostensibly was the reason you started this thread), this is YOUR opportunity to put aside your prejudices. My guess is, you won't.