So you're equating women's soccer to men's soccer? It's nice that you believe that, but it's a fantasy.
But the Women's World Cup, particularly the '99 U.S. championship, had a lot to do with the creation of WUSA, didn't it? Turns out it wasn't sustainable, but you can see the kind of powerful effect the World Cup can have, at least in terms of giving a domestic league a good boost or even spawning the creation of a league. As for the men's team and MLS, unfortunately a first round exit for the U.S. probably won't help MLS and may even hurt it. And they've got a tough draw. FWIW I became a Quakes fan largely due to World Cup. I got into World Cup 2002, realized I could watch Donovan play in my home town, checked out a Quakes game, and got hooked immediately. I remember there was a Metro cover story about Donovan around that time. I saw the paper in the lobby at my office, read the article, and that got me interested enough to attend a game. Sadly, yesterday I saw the "Why Us?" Metro cover about the Quakes leaving, in the same lobby, and I realized how those two Metro articles had sort of formed bookends to my Quakes fan experience. Hopefully there will be another chapter...
I think the soccer community is fractured which doesn't help for media coverage. Half of the US soccer community doesn't care a whit about MLS and watches other leagues. Not the most helpful. I also think, unfortunately, that the soccer community overestimates its strength.
I think you're right... part of the MLS' problem is that it failed, at least in the beginning, to have and act on a strong mission. They thought that they would put teams on the field, have cartoon-like names and graphics, and kids and soccer moms would flock to the stadium. They didn't understand the variety and the breadth of the soccer community. Nike however has captured it nicely in their "Don't Tread On Me" campaign: No one's saying that American soccer is perfect or even ideal, but the league ought to stand for all aspects of the game in the US. For American fans it should showcase the best of the American player and give the players a chance to flower. For kids and soccer moms, it should showcase how the game should be played on a higher level. For foreign-born fans in the US, it should provide a taste of the sport they grew up loving, with the passion, the festivity, and a level of play that, if not ideal, you can appreciate for what it is. The local clubs, like the Quakes, should be resource to every one of these constituancies -- bringing publicity, encouragement, validation, role models, sponsorship, and anything else they can think of. The local clubs need to be advocates for the community, helping unite the community. In return, the community will be advocates for the club. This happend with the Quakes, but only in the last couple of years. I think that's why the Spartan crowds were so lively the last couple of years, compared to some of the other clubs. A friend of mine has an administrative position with a large adult amateur group. He never cared about the Quakes, even though he's a life-long player (retired), fan, coach, ref, administrator. He told me, directly, that for years, the Quakes had ignored the adult amateur leagues. And he would know, he's executive director. Then last year, Jaime Moreno put in some face-time with this guy and his group, and took some publicity photos that ran in the local Mexican American papers. After that, my friend was always asking about the Quakes, and driving from San Francisco to Spartan for games. After all these years, he became an instant fan. It didn't take that much.
It was a one time deal. They are all one time deals. There was another Womens World Cup 4 years after the 1999 one, and it didn't help the WUSA. The fact that you can get 80,000 people to watch Manchester United in the Meadowlands does not mean anything for the Metrostars or MLS. I did too, but we are the exceptions. MLS attendence is not greater in World Cup years. People have long expected MLS to ride on the coattails of world socer popularity, or Mexican soccer popularity, or of the popularity of the game among the children of this nation. It didn't happen and it won't happen, just like it didn't happen for the USFL and XFL even though pro and college football is insanely popular. You have to create a connection between the fan and the team, and that takes effort and time.
Consider hockey. Prior to 1980 they were arguably in that same situation, but when the USA got the gold against the USSR it made a sea change and the NHL really took off. If the USA were to win the World Cup it could do the same thing. But that wouldn't be enough by itself. Remember, the hockey situation happened largely because it was against the USSR in the middle of the Cold War. Al Qaeda doesn't have a soccer team in the World Cup, so we can't really get the same dynamic going. Maybe if it was USA v. France in the final?
Not really. Maybe it was in San Jose, but in Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis, etc., hockey was important stuff - to many of us, at least as important as basketball.
??? http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/06/en/w/team/overview.html?team=ksa Good point about hockey. Winning the Olympics was definitely phase one in the increase in popularity. Another thing that helped was the early-mid 90s expansion/relocation boom into markets previously thought of as "non-hockey", which greatly increased interest in hockey in the US. The boom also resulted in over a decade of good coverage on ESPN/ESPN2, with multiple games airing nationally each week, and way better local coverage with almost all other games on local FSN outlets (I remember how frustrating it was to follow the Seals when I was a kid, because there was only one national game of the week on NBC and the Seals were almost never on that, nor did they have consistent local coverage).
If the Women's WC effectively spawned a new league and its relatively optimistic business plan, that was probably an over-reaction to the effect of that '99 WWC, and the 2003 WWC wasn't enough to correct that over-reaction (and it didn't help that the U.S. women didn't win). But the point stands that the '99 WWC had a significant effect on women's professional soccer even if it was short-lived. We may be "exceptions" in that of all the possible reasons someone might be sufficiently interested in soccer to attend an MLS match, this is not a majority reason. But it may not really be in insignificant factor either. I don't think we have the data to determine that. I would guess that's because people are focusing more on World Cup than MLS. I would be surprised if MLS attendance isn't down next season for that reason. But the World Cup may actually contribute to some not entirely insignificant push in interest in the following years, or even in the MLS 2006 games occurring after the World Cup.
Me too in 1994. I honestly knew next to nothing about soccer until the world's greatest sporting event came to my backyard and I got to go.