Bad management I was reading an article from the WUSA ( "WUSA Suspends Operations" http://soccer.loop48.com/modules.ph...article&sid=999 ) and it looks like the players were running the league which was a bad idea. They play soccer, they don't know business. Especially when Julie Foudy is on the board spouting pro-feminism stuff. [QUOTE The league was formed as a unique partnership between the owners and the players, with founding players taking an active role in league management and also an equity stake. Julie Foudy, captain of the San Diego Spirit and U.S. World Cup team and a member of the WUSA Board of Governors,
Re: Re: Why did WUSA fail? And, at least in my household, the sad fact is that some rabid women sports fans experienced the same...as evidenced by my wife's and daughter's preferences. Yup. That fits my experience. My post-teen player (Div 1 player) daughter would go with me to United games in a flash...but declined going with me to Freedom games. I think that the fan base was heavily families with pre-teen daughters who play soccer. The problem with that is after those daughters grow up, what happens to both them and their parents? My guess (and it's only a guess, since the league only lasted three seasons) is that there would have been a continual churn to that fan base.
"it's one thing to watch the WNT string together 20 beautiful passes against a helpless Third World side resulting in a goal. It's another thing to watch two evenly based teams go at it, complete with tough defense and tough woman to woman marking all over the field." I would add to this by saying that it's one thing to watch a team of attractive women, running around with the American flag on their jersey and kicking ass over the course of a six week World Cup tournament. It's something totally different to get fans to pay to see mid-table teams battle to a 1-1 ties on a Wednesday nights over the course of a long season.
Re: Re: Why did WUSA fail? You and guys like you were the break-through audience for women's soccer. What the WWC in '99 achieved was unprecedented -- they convinced guys to watch. That being said, the WUSA marketers blew it by targeting 12-year old girls instead of you. And, your reasonable criticism of WUSA play leads me to wonder: Did the league make a mistake with eight teams? Should it have been six? The NHL had six teams for years. Six teams would have concentrated the talent, improving play and perhaps broadening the game's appeal. It's to wonder for.
Re: They Marketed Something Different THWACK!!!! That is the sound of the nail being hit on the head.
Re: Re: Re: Why did WUSA fail? I'm not sure if it's fair to compare WUSA in 2002 to NHL in the 50s and 60s (?). Sports biz is a completely different animal now than it was, say even 10 years ago. "Start small" may be a sound advice in retrospect, but would it have been an acceptable TV product. For all the talk about WUSA's arrogance, you have to consider that 1) to make money, you need sponsors 2) to get sponsors, you need to be on TV 3) to get a TV deal, you have to be "major league" 4) to be "major league" you have to have facilities, marketing, etc etc 5) and you have to spend money to get a "major league" league going. Basically, you have to spend money to get money and I don't think keeping the operations small was an option.
That's in important point about the so-called "Original Six" of the NHL and the applicability of the small-league model today. The NHL and even the NBA (the new kid on the block when it comes to the American sports leagues up to MLS) were able to build their live audiences BEFORE television became central American sports. The WUSA and MLS didn't and don't have that luxury. Soccer (and for that matter pro Lacrosse, etc.) will have to build both simultaneously in order to have long-term success. Hell, in terms of paid attendance for income and arena rental and other things for expenses, WUSA would probably compare favorably to the early NBA (Of the Fort Wayne Pistons and the original Denver Nuggets days), when the league would contract and expand on a seasonal basis (much like today's A-League). But today, you can't get away with that and expect to have (let alone build) a TV audience.
The reason why the WUSA failed is very fundamental: It spent an ungodly amount of money, far more than it takes in. And what it took in couldn't have been too bad. In their last season, they drew 6,500 fans a game. That's better than all but a couple of teams in the A-League. In fact, only Rochester, Montreal, and Syracuse averaged more fans. Charleston, who is either profitable or darn close, only drew 3,969 a game to Blackbaud Stadium. So there is a market for women's soccer. But their costs were out of sight: 1. Player salaries - No, they're not on par with MLS, but then, they're also much higher than the A-League. Player salaries probably should've been about half of what they were. Yes, that means that a lot of players wouldn't have been able to be full-time professionals, but you know what? I'm guessing that there are about 180 players that aren't full-time professionals right about now. 2. Stadium deals - Off-hand, I can think of one WUSA team that might not have been screwed on their stadium deal, Carolina at SAS Stadium. Everyone else? I'd be shocked if they weren't paying high rents AND getting nothing in stadium revenues. And if you don't think that makes a difference, I would refer you to the aforementioned Charleston Battery who do OK financially, drawing 4,000 a game to a stadium where they get most of the revenues. 3. TV deals - This is a bit stickier, in that the league was mostly owned by media conglomerates who were using the league to provide programming for their local cable systems. But that doesn't apply to national TV coverage after the first year. In years two and three, they were paying to have their games on PAX. You know, I gotta say -- why bother? If Cox wants to use the San Diego Spirit as cheap programming for Cox Channel 4 in San Diego, fine. But that doesn't mean that the league should spend money it doesn't have to televise games on a network that no one watches at a time that lots of potential viewers are going to be watching MLS games on ESPN2. If they were so dead-set on having national TV coverage, Fox Sports World would've been a better option. 4. San Diego and San Jose - WUSA was an eight team league, but other than those two teams, they were an East Coast league: Atlanta, Carolina, Washington, Philly, New York, and Boston. And for a lot of those games, you can make a very good case for bus travel. But not San Diego and San Jose. The costs for those two teams must've been enormous because other than the three games a year they played against one another, they played a grand total of 36 games on literally the other side of the country. And let's face it -- putting two teams 3,000 miles from your other six teams doesn't really make them any more "national" than a six-team league based on the East Coast. I really have no comment on how they marketed themselves, because honestly, that got them 6,500 fans a game. Besides, as MLS can attest, outright appeal to the soccer hardcores hasn't necessarily been a financial boon. As a fan group, we soccer fans are long on talk, but short on "putting our money where our mouths are." And they proved that there was something of a market. Just not as a big of a market that they thought.
I posited this theory in another thread but got little reply. Many thoughtful posts and articles exist why over the long run WUSA failed to thrive. In the immediate present, however, I believe SUM (and thus indirectly, MLS) killed WUSA. SUM owns the rights to the Women's World Cup. In fact, SUM picked those rights up on the cheap. Advertisers are lining up to be associated with the Cup, and SUM stands to profit handsomely for those rights. WUSA stood not to make a dime on the Women's World Cup. What a coup for SUM. This theory relates only to WUSA going forward next year or next month. How they got themselves in the hole has been covered by others. They couldn't get themselves out, though, because SUM has them boxed out of the one place where women's soccer stands to generate revenue. I don't think SUM did anything wrong. In fact, SUM may prove to be one of Comm'r Garber's best moves ever. But, it didn't help WUSA this month.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Why did WUSA fail? On the other hand, outside of San Jose and San Diego, the WUSA was a six-team East Coast league. Get rid of San Jose and San Diego and you can have each remaining team playing each other four times a season for a total of twenty games. And a lot of those opponents are bus trips from one another. Washington, for example, could reasonably make bus trips to Philly, New York, and Carolina. That would be six out of their 10 road games. Of course, San Diego and San Jose were in the league because of Cox and their desire to put more programming on their cable-only Cox Channel 4 in San Diego and KICU in the Bay Area. Without San Diego and San Jose, no Cox as an investor.
Re: Re: Re: Why did WUSA fail? I can't find the documents, but I think they would not have qualified for Division I status. It takes into account the number of teams and the number of time zones the league straddles. The document was online in the last. I'll have to do some hunting. Those kinds of things are pretty interesting. So maybe the USSF needs to rethink that for the women's game.
Then maybe what they needed was an American League and a National League, with the division being East Coast/West Coast. They could have dropped the Freedom (the RFK lease had to be a real killer) and put them in Seattle or SLC or something.
You do need at least eight teams for any professional league in the U.S., any level, either gender. The Freedom should be playing at another Hendricks venture - the SoccerPlex in suburban Maryland.
I saw this when you posted it before and thought it an interesting idea. If one thing that killed WUSA was lack of corporate sponsorship money then there might be something to this. If a corporation decides that soccer is a good thing to invest in and they've gotta choose between WUSA and SUM I'm pretty sure they're gonna go with SUM simply because it's so much bigger and has so many more assets. Moreover, when SUM got control of the WWC I think it became very clear that WUSA as a financial entity was on the way out. After all, WUSA's greatest asset was arguably the WWC. That's what started the league and that's what everyone hoped would revitalize the league. But with SUM in control of it WUSA would only benefit in the most indirect way. Consequently the smart corporate money was SUM. That's not to imply that corporations are beating down SUM's door (they're not) but only that with SUM firmly in control of the WWC it must have significantly dimmed the prospects of WUSA gaining anything in terms of corporate money in the future. What I don't get is why WUSA didn't try harder to get control of the WWC. The only reasonable explanation that I can think of is that they just didn't have the money for the rights or the infrastructure. And if all that is true then the future of American soccer probably isn't so much reliant on the success of MLS and the national teams as much as it is on SUM.
Re: Re: Re: Why did WUSA fail? The USSF requirements for a division 1 league state that there has to me a minimum of eight teams. I don't know if there was a region III team, but they may need to hit all four regions of the country with at least one team as well. I did not really watch the WWC in 1999, but I saw the end of the final. Honestly, I watched because nothing else was on and because some of the players were hot. That might sound bad, but my reaction to the looks of the players isn't much different than my wife being interested in a MLS game because she likes the way players look. It was also a special event. Every four years, I could feign interest. Outside of that, my sports and life plate is full, so I don't need another league to follow. The WWC final in 99 was a special moment. You can't build a league on a moment. Even after the success of the 1994 World Cup, which was the best attended ever, MLS has had problems. The success the US had last year in Japan hasn't provided a big bump either. We like big events when they are wrapped in the flag, but getting a league going takes time. My feeling as to why the league failed is simple. The WWC players and the guy that sold them on the idea bought into the hype machine. They thought they were bigger than they really were. Instead of going for a modest plan so they could grow smart, they tried to win the world cup all over again. By doing that, they took all the money they could up front and screwed over the next generation of players. If it really was about leaving a legacy, they wouldn't have let Hendricks fill their heads with more hype. They would have tried to build something solid and long term. The players had a stake in this league. They can't blame management alone because they were partners with a voice. As far as SUM is concerned, WUSA had a lot of media clout behind them. There's no reason why they couldn't have done the reverse to MLS. It's called vision and WUSA's people in this case didn't see the opportunity, nor did they work through a crisis as effectively as MLS management did.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Why did WUSA fail? You just summed up everything perfectly. Couldn't have said it better myself.
The original US Soccer Federation bylaws for Division 1 sanctioning called for 7 teams, spread out over 3 USSF administrative regions or 3 time zones. That rule was changed to raise the bar to 8 teams AFTER WUSA was certified in 2000.
from today's MLS Confidential Shhhh, don't tell anyone but I just read the following in today's Soccer America MLS Confidential e-mail: WUSA AFTERMATH: Despite declaring a truce that included double-headers and some cooperative ventures, the men's and women's pro leagues were always bound to go their separate ways. MLS officials weren't pleased several years ago when proponents of a women's league suddenly broke off discussions and took their own course. "It came as a complete shock to us at the time," said a source. "They at least could have informed us prior to their announcement but if that's how they want to do business, that's fine." According to another source, MLS executive vice president Mark Abbott devoted many hours to formulating and drawing up a business plan for a women's league. "He gave it to them, and they tore it up and wrote their own business plan," said the source. "We certainly don't have all the answers, but we tried to tell them what we'd learned about the market and they wouldn't listen."
Re: from today's MLS Confidential While I'm sure most in MLS management wished the women well, some no doubt are secretly gloating - just a bit - today. Hopefully in a few years there'll be another league and this will all be a bad memory.
Re: from today's MLS Confidential What goes around, comes around. MLS/SUM/AEG simply boxed in WUSA and waited for Foudy and company to run out of money once WUSA blew its first $40 million by April 2001. WUSA had been trying to sell a franchise to AEG the moment Comcast decided to bail on WUSA in May 2001 after a grand total of one (1) Philly Charge telecast on Comcast Sportsnet Philadelphia. (Brian Roberts and Amy Banse didn't mess around when the first telecast got an 0.3 rating, far below the 1.0 projected by WUSA.) Los Angeles Charge? Didn't happen even though WUSA flew the team out to LA for a post-season exhibition and had Heather, Lorrie, and Jenny Benson tour The Depot in Carson during construction. Los Angeles C-Rays? Nope. Meadowlands Power? Nope. SUM/MLS/AEG bought US English-language TV rights to WWC 2003 essentially as a throw-in with the rights to WC 2002 and 2006. Those rights weren't supposed to be worth anything because the matches were supposed to be aired in the middle of the night or on tape-delay. However, when the rights appreciated in value after WWC 2003 was yanked from China, WUSA didn't have enough spare change to buy them from SUM/AEG/MLS. Comcast and Time Warner had both bailed from WUSA by then. There was no chance AEG would invest in WUSA as long as Foudy was still involved with WUSA in any way, shape, or form. Why not? Because two power brokers in Alan R. and Sunil say so.
Re: Bad management Posted in the other big thread and worth repeating here: "I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute." - attributed to Rebecca West Look, if people of all political persuasions can watch Rush Limbaugh on ESPN's NFL pregame show or go to movies featuring either Janeane Garofalo or Charlton Heston (or watch Friends episodes with Tom Selleck), people can deal with Julie Foudy, who's nowhere near as strident as people make her out to be. She's a women's soccer player who supports women's soccer. What a shock. It's only in journalism that we all hate our profession. Hey Dustin -- What are you doing, trying to interject common sense into this discussion?
Re: Re: Bad management I am a political conservative. I have no problem with Ms. Foudy at all. Yes, there are conservatives who think sports should not be played by women. There are also liberals who hate sports completely (I dated a few when I was single). There are feminists who think that sports is for brutish men (I dated a fw of them also when I was single).
Re: Re: Re: Bad management [imitation of some people] Liberal! [/imitation] Tweaking of knee-jerkers aside, I think you've proved my point. If we all only associated with people who thought exactly like us, our country really would be as hostile as it's portrayed on cable news. And we could forget about having soccer leagues.
Right. But I am thinking of a WUSA with 8 teams like baseball has 30 teams. 16 in one league, 14 in the other.