In Frank Dell'Appa's story in yesterday's Globe, he stated that the WUSA and it's teams had about 375 employees. If that number and my arithmetic is right, that would mean that something over half the people being paid by the league weren't players. I very much doubt that the A-League has more non-playing staff than players. Then again, their revenue projections aren't based primarily on fantasy. I play cards with friends a couple times a month, and the host is fond of saying "play 'em as if you had 'em". It looks like the WUSA applied the same strategy, only they weren't playing dollar limit poker.
One of the WUSA's biggest mistakes was starting up as a made-for-TV league. That's an inherently unstable business model, as media companies are especially likely to think in the short term. They are, for one, under pressure to outperform their competitors immediately. The upshot is: most of the league's early sponsors, being television companies, pulled out in the second season when their (highly unrealistic) ratings expectations were not met. Just like the XFL. Add the second- and third-year attendance expectations, and you've got a disaster waiting to happen. Perhaps the most relevant fact is not the failure of past women's sports leagues, or the failure of past soccer leagues in the US, but the fact that no made-for-TV league has ever succeeded. IIRC, the WUSA has lasted longer than any made-for-TV league in history (Socker Slam and Slamball, anyone?). Looking at MLS, we see attendance starting to rise after hitting bottom in the 5th season. If we look at the J-League, we find that its attendance also hit bottom in its 5th season before rising. Therefore, one might contend that 5 years is approximately the amount of time that a startup league needs to turn the corner, and any startup league needs to plan for at least 5 years before a single ball is kicked.
Do not blaspheme SlamBall. It is in its second season, b y the way so it still could outlast WUSA. And I think there's a big difference between a sport created for television and a league for an existing sport backed by television. But I agree that when media entities are the backers, any sports is on a short leash.
I suppose I've always sort of assumed that the women's teams shared some costs, i.e. stadiums, training facilities, etc, with MLS or maybe A-league, whatever - but, by the sound of it, that wasn't the case. Is that correct? If that is correct how the hell did they ever think they were going to succeed with only 8 teams, who did they play against? Surely each team didn't keep playing the same 7 teams over and over, 6 or 7 times each? I understand the point about corporate sponsorship but surely to have that you have to have games for people to watch and you can' do that if you just keep playing the same people over and over again. Can someone provide some guidance..
Andy, the schedule was very short. They start later than MLS, and they had their championship weeks ago, and MLS only plays 30 regular season matches. There are ~6 matches left in MLS. I think WUSA teams only played 20 or 21 matches. Basically, it was a league for when school is out. Nope, no cost sharing, except the occasional doubleheader. The plan was to get great TV ratings. I've seen it posted (from a dubious source, I admit) that WUSA promised 1.0 ratings. MLS ratings aren't even 1/3 of that (I think.) Anyway, the high ratings would mean big bucks from the corporate sponsors. But that never materialized.
This thread has been an interesting read -- good job guys. What I find most interesting is that last week we had three professional soccer leagues in this country (MLS, USL, and WUSA). And there was NO cooperation at all amongst the three. None. Does that seem, for lack of a better word, stupid to anybody else? I mean, soccer is a tough sell. Nobody has ever made money off a soccer league in this country. And we had three of them, competing at the same time, and not pooling resources in any way at all, save for the occassional WUSA/MLS doubleheader. I know the reasons are complex, and can probably be justified, but just step back for a second and think about that. Just seems stupid. The other thing I've taken away is new appreciation for the A-League's continuing, tenuous viability. Here's a league that faces even a tougher battle than WUSA, yet manages to survive, and, in some markets, thrive. It has no rich sponsors, plays second fiddle to MLS, is expressly and unapologetically a Div. II league, draws, on average, half of what WUSA drew, but still manages to survive year after year. Hopefully, the W-League can fill some of the void left by WUSA. Maybe I'm an optimist, but I really think women's pro soccer can make it in this country if it's done the right way -- grassroots, from the ground up. The W-League seems positioned to do that. I watched the W-League final on FSW, and it seemed to played at just as high a level as WUSA.
Now, the obvious question here is, does the W-League remain alive because it takes a low-rent approach? Or can it maintain its vitality with a higher budget, that is to say, can you upgrade the league and create a Div 1 league from existing teams without running into the same Catch 22's that the WUSA did. I'm hopeful as well, and the grassroots approach is the exact opposite of the one WUSA took. It went from top-down and counted on future earnings that never came. If there is to be a WUSA2, I'd like to see a more slow, steady approach instead of picking 8 arbitrary markets and calling it Division 1.
Jim Rome, for once, brings in goof points about leagues like the WUSA that fail. http://www.jimrome.com/home/article/article_3.html
Why should women be forced to wait? That is the title of a letter to the editors of the San Jose Mercury News, which I think sums up all the wrong-headed thinking on the part of WUSA nicely. Can't find it online, text follows: While your editorial (Opinion, Sept. 19) on the passing of the Women's United Soccer Association claims to be a sports history lesson aimed a smug professional football fans, it really admonishes female athletes and their fans to be more patient in their quest for a chance at pro sports. How insulting. In 1920 , then the Canton Bulldogs and nine other now-defunct teams yu mentioned began play in the Americn Professional Football Association, women finally got to vote, a patient wait of a mere 132 years after men assumed that right. Men may bave been struggling to get paid for playing sports in 1920, but women were struggling just to play. Last week, half of the professional team sports opportunities available to women in the United States disappeared because eight corporations couldn't be found to support the WUSA to tune of $2 million each. This came in the same year that one high school boy from Ohio, who may become good NBA player, sighed contracts with a sneaker manufacturer and soda bottler totalling more than $100 million. Why should women who have proved themselves the best soccer players in the world -- and who have patiently supported LeBron James' corporate benefacors -- wait any longer for a pittance of hist corporate aid? Jody Meacham Public relations director San Jose CyberRays I'm not sure what suffrage has to do with professional soccer, I guess he is claiming a women's professional soccer league is a constitutionally-guarranteed right??? And what does LeBron James have to do with WUSA? Is Jody advocating a fascist state where private companies aren't allowed to do as they please with their capital??? And I don't think women have "patiently supported LeBron James' corporate benefactors". I think they decided they wanted a new pair of sneakers or a soda. Notice the faceitious terms "benefactors" and "corporate aid". They are not benefactors, they think they will sell more sneakers or more soda with LeBron endorsing their product, something they decidedly couldn't expect from sponsoring a league that plays before empty stadiums and generates TV rating that can't even be detected by a seismograph. I get tired of this idea that women are "owed" a professional soccer league. Guess what, women already have exactly the same rights as men. To start a league, to work within their budget, to struggle to improve their product, and to convince people to spend their money and time watching. By their logic, are handicapped people "owed" a professional soccer league also, or what about the fact that all the professional soccer players in this country are 40 or under, most under 26! The majority of Americans by age are not represented in professional soccer, and there should be a professional league for people over 40 like myself! Corporations owe my league $2M each because we have been buying their products longer than those girls in WUSA! All Americans over 40, BOYCOTT ALL CORPORATIONS until they sponsor a Geriatrics United Soccer Association (GUSA)!!!
Interesting that Jody writes his former employer: http://www.sjcyberrays.com/news/rel_20000925.html I think the letter would make a lot more sense if we also saw the original editorial. As it stands now, I don't understand the historical references, either -- but I do think you're putting more than a few words in his mouth. It's a big leap from questioning shoe company's spending habits (is $90M for an unproven high schooler really a better investment than $2M for several marketable women's soccer players?) to "advocating a fascist state."
Good find. However, I'm afraid that, by bigsoccer.com standards, that sort of leap in logic isn't exactly Evel Kneivel going over the Snake River Gorge, or even Mike Powell beating Bob Beamon's long jump record. It's more like the old lady climbing on the bus to go get a prescription refilled.
Good point, here it is: http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion/6809687.htm Sure, I was arguing in absurdum. But his statement "Why should women... wait any longer for a pittance of [LeBron's] corporate aid?" implies this same entitlement idea I hear over and over regarding WUSA. Even calling it "corporate aid" indicates he's missing the point. It's not aid, it's marketing. They pay LeBron that sponsorship money because they expect to make a return on their money. I haven't heard anybody at WUSA take responsibility for failing to convince any but two corporations that WUSA sponsorship was a good financial investment. In a nutshell, I don't think women's soccer will succeed until they accept the fact that's it's a business like any other. This whining will only succeed in making the league look foolish to portential corporate sponsors.
Now that I read the original editorial, I think Jody totally overreacted. The point is that it sometimes takes more than one try to make a pro league work. I hope Jody realizes that the original WUSA plan needs a bit of tweaking. Second point is valid. I think the case CAN be made, but it wasn't.
Re: Why should women be forced to wait? Whoa...way off base here, Jody. LeBron James gets $100 million because the companies have a reasonable expectation that they'll see a good return on investment. WUSA's attendance numbers and ratings started out weak and got weaker. No company with a marketing budget is going to give WUSA (or anyone else) $2 million in charity money.
Re: Re: Why should women be forced to wait? 2001 asking price for a WUSA charter sponsorship, based on a projected 1.0 national TV rating: $2 million. 2003 asking price for a WUSA charter sponsorship, based on an 0.1 average national TV rating on PAX: $2.5 million. WUSA management had to gall to RAISE sponsorship prices by 25% even though WUSA got only 1/10 the year 1 projected TV ratings. Any wonder why no one other than Hyundai and Johnson and Johnson bought those overpriced WUSA charter sponsorships? WUSA management had a serious case of Peter Pan syndrome. WUSA's business plan appeared to have been based on faith rather than reality.