http://www.mlssoccer.com/blog/post/...-soccer-join-forces-mls-julie-foudy-thinks-so Hey I'm all for the creation of "WMLS" if it makes financial sense and only for MLS Owners that contol/own their stadiums for revenue and lingistic reasons. I believe women's professional soccer has a place in the US professional sports landscape. It just needs the proper business and market models that tailor today's level of interest in the women's game. History has shown us with two failed women's leagues, and MLS's burgeoning success, the single entity model with the right type of deep-pocketed investors and now soccer-specific stadiums, the women's game may have a chance. But that's a different discussion for another thread... My issue is Foudy, and most of the "Founders" raised their nose in the air and laughed at the idea of joining with MLS after their WC success. They claimed MLS would be "riding their coattails"! MLS would be "leeches" to the launching of their new Women's League! They thought they would do a better women's professionl league than the men when launching MLS after their '94 WC success. It just stinks to me the arrogance they still continue to validate as they explain their reasons for shunning MLS and now they want to pose some guilt trip if MLS doesn't want to beckon to their cry to professional sporting oblivion. Again, I'm all for a professional women's soccer league. The US Women's National Team will surely suffer the next WC cycle the way the women's semi-pro set-up is to date. I'm just not for creating a WMLS on the level of the MLS if and of the "Founders" have any part of it. Let it be created by the MLS, with origins of ONLY the "MLS Founders". If you give Foudy, Chastain, et.al. a foothold into any part the "WMLS", you'll be opening Pandora's Box. If you thought the Bruce spouted off with mouth in his "know-it-all" critizisms... Oh boy, you just wait!
MLS should not spend a dime on women's soccer ... they have plenty of things they could spend those dimes on for MLS and better players for MLS. i have no problem with MLS teams having girls as part of their academy set ups and i don't have a problem with MLS sponsoring amateur women's teams in W-League etc. but i have a major issue with MLS throwing money down a toilet on women's professional soccer .. women's pro soccer is a money pit and MLS needs to spend all of its money on MLS and making MLS better.
What DC United, the Rapids, Vancouver and Seattle do with the W-League makes sense. I'm not sure MLS is yet in a financial position to do much more than that. But in the long term, I think it's perfectly fine and good for MLS to have a foot in the women's league door. The W-Leauge route does that.
Foudy has been a ********ing idiot for years. Knave is spot on. Its call "proof of concept". Otherwise, unless there is a Aunt Phil, shit ain't gonna happen.
Sad for them, I guess. All the Pony Tailed Hooligans grew up and had boys, or their girls play softball.
The markets have spoken - with a resounding NEEEEIIIGGGGHHHH. Whatever moves womens' sports forward will have to have a valid business model and sufficient interest to finance the endeavor. Of all the women's sports leagues outside of like beach volleyball, soccer probably has the most potential to break through...in time.
I actually, you know, just read the article. If the byline said "Beau Dure" or "Andy Mead" or maybe even "Bill Archer", I doubt there would be a thread here. There's nothing earth-shattering, ground-breaking, or even mildly controversial. It's not even strongly advocating a position, just an analysis that it could work in the right markets. I'm still not sure why the name "Julie Foudy" is like waving a red flag in front of a bunch of bulls anymore.
True. Though if the WUSA hadn't been set up as a series of All-Star games for certain members of the Founders, they might still have a league.
If you want analysis of this issue, perhaps having someone OTHER than Julie Foudy compose the article might have been the way to go, what with her past comments and all. I mean, having Foudy lead a discussion on MLS starting a women's league is like having Mitt Romney lead a discussion of Obama Care at a Tea Party rally.
I don't know about that second statement. Yeah, she said what she said way back when. It was dumb. It pissed us off. But to my knowledge, it was the only thing she said to rub MLS fans the wrong way. Since then, she's went on to do USNT and MLS stuff for ESPN. People say stupid, off-base shit all the time, they don't need to be reminded of it for the rest of their lives. It's not 1999 anymore.... time to forgive Ty Keough for sucking at MLS broadcasts, and it's time let what Julie Foudy said go. She's not even 1/1,000th of the MLS troll that Eric Wynalda is.
Though some of the things she's said during her MLS and USNT work for ESPN would also qualify as stupid and off-base, just not for the same reasons her comment about a women's MLS way back when was stupid and off-base.
Yes, she was terrible...But I'm talking about her one statement that still has MLS fans rankled, two folded women's leagues later.
You'll get your post probably quoted a lot for your ignorance of Julie Foudy's history with,then called, USSF and MLS. The issue with the Founders was their arrogance in thinking THEY were American Soccer. Anything and everything that was soccer was about them. In their minds, anyway. They laughed and really believed their accomplishments were on par of Brazil, Italy, or Spain's WC winning men's National Teams. As if their WC competing participants were of the same caliber in 1999. There were four women's national sides that could win it all...period...China and US the favorites, then Sweden and Germany. That's it! The rest is history... And they never respected the American Men's game, nor their '94 accomplishments hence their fallout with USSF and the shunning of working with the young MLS league. So they form a Women's league... The Founders paid themselves over-the- top salaries, well into six figures without proving anything at the club level or financial credibility of league being established. The non-Founders players were already complaining of the salary discrepancies already before their first match! The balked at a main broadcaster like ESPN for their games and went solely with ...help me, can't remember the channel, but it was some lesser known,non- sports cable channel. Then there were factions between the old guard holding on and the new Generation a la Abby Wambach trying to establish themselves. It went on and on... Bottom line, they started executive level top as Pre-Madonnas, believing they knew better. But the few, and I'll say selfish women, used that women's league to fatten their Founder wallets, cheapenly enhance 15 minutes of fame, and indulge their egos at the expense of future girls having a professional soccer league to call their own today! That league was a corporation with the Founders being the CEO and holding all the shares! They were the players/owners! Is that grassroots? Did you think the foundation of that league would be solid...really? Hell, their teammates were their employees! There is no humility spoken to American soccer audience now nor then, no remorse, no acceptance, no taking accountability and ownership in how their arrogance, egos, and poor decision making cost future American and global women soccer players a professional league at what could have been riding the burgeoning success MLS is now experiencing and call their own today. Instead, they want to be activists, advocates, play the grassroots card now when their past examples and history was anything but building a solid, inclusive, sacrifice for the future of the league type of mentality. Hell, Foudy doesn't even want to "re-hash" the scar knowing those women are very much to blame for the failure of women's professional soccer today because of the selfish, egotistical, arrogant behavior of yesteryear. It sickening how they chose to just sweep their failure in what was such a blossoming opportunity AND responsibility...the creation of a women's professional soccer league...right under the rug!
Women's soccer is better than WNBA, now really sure how a couple of hours of layups is exciting. But, MLS needs to make it's own product better before it goes off trying to build another women's league. MLS ain't exactly the NBA with money flowing everywhere.
Andy's right. You're wrong. It would take me half the day to correct all the factual errors in your post. Look folks -- I know Julie Foudy. The image you folks have of her as some fire-breathing man-hating Anschutz-shredding demon is dead wrong. If you guys want to persist in talking about crap about which you're completely ignorant, why don't you stick to soccer tactics? (drops mike ... walks out ...)
THAT is a legitimate concern. A lot of people in women's soccer are looking to MLS as a savior, but they're often assuming money that isn't there. What would help (and oddly enough, it's similar to something Borislow said) would be for a sponsor to do an adidas-type deal -- instead of putting a ton of money toward Generation adidas and developmental stuff, it would go toward a women's league affiliated with MLS. If sponsors go to MLS with money specifically earmarked toward women's soccer, then why not? Of course, they could always do that on their own. I don't know why Nike, with the building named after Mia Hamm, didn't step up for "Nike Women's Professional Soccer" or something like that.