Hey Women's Soccer Fans. Members of the US Women's Soccer Team are hosting a fundraiser in San Diego next weekend (Dec 11 & 12), that is a great opportunity for fans to actually spend some time with them, and support a good cause, GoGirlGo (www.gogirlgo.com). It's a very cool event, here's the site: www.ladiesfirstgolf.org. As is typically of the bureaucracy and stupidity that led to the shut down of the WUSA, no one at the league will release the San Diego Spirit's list of season ticket holders or registered fans (or those from any other team, for that matter), so that we can get the word out to the players' fans, so that they might be able to come. So, we need your help in getting the word out, as the event is just one week away. There are a total of ONLY 200 tickets available. If you go to the web site, you'll see that the tickets are pretty expensive (since it IS a fundraiser), but I know for a fact if you ask about group discounts or let them know you know they haven't sold out yet, they will offer you discounts so that they make sure the event is a sell out and a building block for future years...please pass the word around about this great opportunity to meet and hang out with the US Women's Soccer Team Players (including Foudy and all the rest) and to raise money for a good cause, before it's too late! Thanks! Goldengirl
Bureaucracy didn't lead to the shut down of the WUSA, it was the lack of a viable business plan. Here's what "Go Girl Go" is about. It's basically just the Womens Sports Foundation: http://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/cgi-bin/iowa/about/article.html?record=51 It's $750 minimum for a weekend VIP Pass, $5,000 if you want to play. http://www.ladiesfirstgolf.org/hand...e=D&lls_lst_art_ps_id=12&lls_lst_cat_ps_id=32 It looks like a very worthy cause, best of luck. I think your bringing up the Spirit season ticket holders list is a red herring. The minimum buy-in for this for one person is more than the cost of season tickets to the Spirit for a family of four. I'm pretty sure it's well beyond the means of the vast majority of BigSoccer posters, too. I would think that a couple ads placed in LA and SD area business publications would be far more effective. Like I said, best of luck - the Womens Sports Foundation is a very worthy cause.
i thought they had a solid business plan. the problem as i saw it was that they aimed too high right away in trying to fill those statdiums. It is enormous overhead to lease stadium time. Then again, finding suitable soccer venues that fit a professional standard is difficult in the states. If the league had launched immediately following WWC '99 it would have had a much better chance at brining in ticket revenue. Remember how intense the women's soccer buzz was at that time nationally but things did not come together when it needed to.
WUSA also was financed with what turned into pretend money when AOL bought Time Warner, they were VERY top heavy (lot's of administration compared to similar leagues), and the business plan was based on TV revenue and national sponsors that never really materialized. Certainly, SocFed did all it could to submarine the project - and succeeded in killing of the NSA (the Dorrance sponsored predecessor plan to WUSA). To make women's soccer succeed at this level, it is going to take VERY savvy management, deep pockets who are in it for ten years (at least at the outset), and enough political power to hold off the federation (either by buying them off, threatening them with WSF or congress, or having the backing of Anschutz, Hunt, and Kraft).