This is sad news! Now we just have to make sure MLS is ok. I'm sure fans of WUSA only wish (the) MLS the best in its future growth.
Good thing for MLS. MLS has now fully established itself as the number one American soccer league in America. Some fans got a taste for soccer and will want to keep that going. So this could help MLS. The perception that soccer is a girls sport is diminished now that WUSA has shown to be weaker to MLS. Yes this does matter, because if less parents think this, less kids do, and then more kids will play soccer. If WUSA were to somehow survive it would look to expand to better proven soccer markets. Gee I wonder where there are some proven soccer markets. Maybe Columbus, LA, Dallas, and even the sacred ground that is Chicago. Some companies as part of their duty to increase soccer in America will turn their dollars to MLS. I know I wouldn't mind seeing McDonald's supporting MLS. So WUSA folding is in fact a good thing for MLS. I hate seeing people lose their jobs but the ladies are all talented and will be able to find other careers. Hopefully when MLS has become stable and is prospering they will have their own women's league.
The ManU tour probably made more money in 3 weeks than WUSA lost in 3 years. What will potential corporate sponsors make of that? I'm exaggerating, but the case for high-profile soccer was made, and the closest thing to that domestically is MLS. Tim Howard went from MetroStars to ManU. There's a connection. Where can Briana Scurry go? Or julie Foudy? WUSA was it, and it was small-time Charlie (or Charleen), even when they played in RFK. It just looked like something desperate to be more than it was; it never matched the hype. Having said that, it's got to hurt worse than root canal at the free clinic for the league to close shop a week before the WWC. Raining on the parade is one thing, but this is golden showers.
How desperate were the WUSA's investors to jump ship that they couldn't wait four more weeks to announce the folding? In four more weeks, the Women's World Cup might have generated enough buzz to get a few sponsors on board for next year, no? Allow me to be the first to say NANNY-NANNY BOO-BOO! I TOLD YOU SO! YOU GOT WHAT YOU DESERVED! To answer the question of the thread, yes, the WUSA's folding helps MLS in a big way. Now maybe things will be set up the way they should've been set up in the first place: double-headers every week with a women's game first and a men's game second -- all under the same team names and logos MLS already has. First the Metrostars women play the Galaxy women, and then the Metrostars men play the Galaxy men. How difficult was this to figure out? Hey, corporate morons! Stop dividing the already small pie of soccer fans in the U.S. Do things that will bring the different soccer audiences (men, women, screaming young girls, brash young boys, families, eurosnobs, MLS-snobs, etc.) together, instead of driving them apart. Mia Hamm will look amazing in a DC United uniform, don't you think? And how great will Brandi Chastain look in an Earthquakes uniform? Get this done, boneheads, and I'll be more than happy to see you laugh all the way to the bank.
Tell that to an immigrant, hard-core soccer fan. They'll call you a stupid American who doesn't know futbol. Tell that to Telemundo, which paid over 3 times as much as ESPN did for the 2002 and 2006 World Cups. Tell that to the "white bread American" hard-core fan who supported the champions tourney this summer. They'll take their ManU shirt and strangle you for not knowing the game and how soccer fans operate. If the US were to win the Cup, goddamn there would be a revolution in this country.
It is BAD if the message received by sponsors and the media is that pro soccer is an unstable bet in the USA. Is if GOOD if it wakes up all the complacent MLS fans who have lost some of the hunger of 1996 into seeing that even if MLS isn't perfect, its survival is not guaranteed and can't be taken for granted.
There's a joke about an opera (I think it was Porgy & Bess, but I'm not sure) that goes: First, it's about black people, which means white people won't watch it; second, it repeats a lot of stereotypes about blacks, which means black people won't watch it; and third, it's an opera, which means nobody will watch it. A similar joke could be made about the WUSA. It's a sport, so women won't watch it; it's a women's sport, so men won't watch it; and it's soccer, so nobody will watch it. Whether the demise of the WUSA will hurt MLS probably depends on which perception dominates among potential fans, investors, and sponsors. I personally think the effect either way will be negligible.
my question is this.... will any of the sponsors of wusa (that aren't with mls right now) possibly be willing to make the switch to mls? more established, building stadia, has sum... etc. etc
A tad brash, but right on the money...this is exactly what the MLS should do. When everyone gets in SSS' though, you have women's soccer in the spring/summer, and the men in the fall/winter. Year...round...marketing...MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY
Sponsors don't care if the league is making money, they care if they're getting enough exposure for their advertising dollars.
If you are suggesting using the WUSA players to model MLS jerseys, then you can surely do better than those two... Now if you are suggesting bring WUSA players into MLS to PLAY....wow...lay off the crack pipe
Seriously--- Do you expect a one-word answer? WUSA is a start-up league, a women's league and a soccer league. It might be those things in that order, but it was all of those things. MLS is a start-up league and a soccer league (probably in that order). WUSA being a women's league does distance it from MLS, but there are similarities too that not everyone will overlook-- even if you can't understand how anyone would confuse a "woman's league" with a "soccer league". As long as one investor feels like MLS is too risky now because of the demise of a similarly structured start-up soccer league, yes, it hurts MLS. If MLS can capitalize on any of those sponsorship dollars or the few fans that were affected by WUSA (because, as I recall, the statistics really don't support much of an effect at all), there is a potential for MLS to benefit.
Maybe this will make the MLS work harder to attract people to the games. If the MLS continues, I expect that they will start a new womens league, but this is after SSS are built and they get their act together when it comes promotion.
My only concern is... does this mean Heather Mitts can pursue modeling full time? je je je Who ends up with all the equipment that the league acquired over its short span. Colleges, MLS, charity, or others?
I completely agree that the WUSA is getting what they deserved. They put themselves in a position where they were competing with MLS, thus dooming themselves from the start. For evidence of this, just look at the scheduling. Why did the WUSA always schedule their televised match of the week at the same time MLS had its match of the week on ESPN? However, I think it would be a very BAD idea to create a "W-MLS". A women's version of MLS would destroy both leagues. Your proposal of womens/mens double-headers sounds good in theory, but you're forgetting one big thing. Double-headers mean double the ticket price, and a lot of MLS fans wouldn't want to pay a higher ticket price for a women's game that they wouldn't show up for. MLS is taking the steps it needs to survive. It is building stadiums, it's working to expand to other markets, and attendance is going up. The WUSA's will help MLS. I don't think we'll see a massive influx of new fans, because I think a lot of WUSA's fans were already MLS fans. However, that means those fans will be watching and attending more MLS games, because there no more competition.
I never paid double for the DC United/Freedom double headers I attended. Two games for the price of one, every time.
You obviously have no idea what you're talking about here. This has been discussed countless times. I'll go over it slowly for you. PAX TV gave them no choice. If they wanted to be on TV after their first season, it had to be on PAX, and this was the only time PAX offered them. It's not like MLS has ESPN by the short curlies, incidently, and WUSA had no more choice over their time slot than MLS does once college football starts up. Those of you gloating over the demise of WUSA are pathetic, incidently. While I never watched more than 10 minutes of the league myself, it's still soccer. To be happy or to taunt the league and its fans in a way that supposes that MLS is -- as of this moment -- here to stay is also stupid. MLS isn't surviving right now on its profitability and widespread popularity, it's surviving largely on the patronage of two guys, and if one of them were to die suddenly, the league would be in serious trouble. A bit more humility and common decency is in order.
3 years was too short a time to expect to see a profit when starting up a sports league. Their investors were far too impatient. If they did not hav ethe fortitude and vision to see this league thru its first WWC, then this speaks volumes about the caliber of decsions they made. And when the WWC got moved to the USA they saw no way to capitilize of this good fortune, then again, they were far too impatient. This is not good for soccer. Garber says this will have no impact on MLS. I think it will have minimal impact but in the end, will make no difference. Its too bad though. And If I had a daughter I would be more disappointed.
They didn't fold because they weren't profitable. They folded because they were far from profitability and had no idea how to get there.
I wanted this league to work and am sad to see it go. This in a strange way could help MLS attendance. It seemed to me that SJ,NE and DC all suffered attendance declines once the WUSA team moved in. Now that there is only one game in town you might see many of those people going back to MLS games. If this happens that would be bittersweet.