Well and the fact that they didn't really market to men (I'm not trying to be sexiest, just truthful). But if they had that would've given them maybe another year... Oh and bad business management, really really bad and arrogant business management.
Ummmmmmmmmm, you're wrong, sorry! There is a soccer league in the US that at least approaching profitibilty. Oh and has... uh.... experienced management (God even that sounded wrong!).
I don't know if anyone else has posted this, but let me lay this canard to rest. MLS did NOT propose a WMLS except in a last-ditch response to force the WUSA to the bargining table. You can argue that perhaps the WUSA would have been wiser to work more closely with MLS, but the fact remains that MLS did little to court the women until the very last second. Sachin
Nice Info Strong Bad, I mean Sachin. I'm new to this but why would MLS force WUSA to the bargaining table?
But don't forget, men don't want to go to women's sports, or so the conventional wisdom goes. So why would the WUSA have marketed to demographic that wouldn't have cared. Sachin
Ya know, you're the second DC United fan from Alaska I've seen Anyway.... In 1999, the tables were reversed. MLS was a struggling league that was bleeding money, facing a stagnating level of play, no marketable stars, and a national team that was humiliated in France. In contrast, the WUSA was coming off a banner year for women's sports, especially soccer, had more name recognition than ANY active male soccer player, several deep-pocked media owners and a lot of momemtum. So basically MLS was screwed. They really didn't court the women, the women didn't want to work with them and all they could do was try to force the USSF to force the WUSA folks to talk to MLS. They tried to use some procedural trick to force the talks, but it didn't work. Sachin
I agree. What was the most beautiful thing you've ever seen? Was it the first goal against El Cry? The first can't be me 'cause I've never posted my pic here.
I am not sure about the accusations that the WUSA failed because it only marketed to little girls. Could be. I do know that I did not renew my season tickets for the Freedom this year (I feel guilty) partly because the on-field product was not as good as MLS. But more importantly to me, the in stadium experience was not as good. The lack of fan instensity, and international flavor made a huge difference to me at least. There was also a much more noticable and sustainable effort by DC United in the youth soccer world than from the Freedom. I work with the DCU staff on organizing nights for our club, getting them to our camps etc. They are relentless. The Freedom made a strong effort in year one, then faded. I suppose that may have been part of the cost cutting efforts. Its sad, but its two tough sells, soccer and womens team sports. My concern is what this will do to morale with the USWNT heading into the world cup.
Given that they only had eight teams but a nationally-recognized core group of stars, that's not necessarily a bad way to think, except in DC where the stadium costs were probably considerably more. In addition to many of the fine points stated in previous posts, I had frequently read that WUSA had a challenge completely unique to them. The fanbase of the so-called "pony-tailed hooligans" didn't completely embrace the concept of the home team. Lots of girls screamed for their favorite WNT player when they would come through town regardless, be it Mia or Brandi or Kristine, and not for their local team. This couldn't have made it easier to sell season tickets.
You can tell things were going bad when the WUSA began it's TV contract with CNNSI. So much for good chocies. There was even mention that many WUSA tv games started the same time as MLS matches. The fact they were reliant on the women of '99 makes it look like that the WUSA, unlike MLS, wasn't promoting stars of the future. European nations are starting to develop professional women's leagues.
I don't think that's true. When MLS started, the stars of the league were the '94 team and the marquee foreign players (Etch, RDA, Cien, Pibe). It's really only been in the past few years, especially with the improved play of the MNT, that they have moved away from that.
Think back to the WUSA leadership thinking the national team viewing numbers would translate into club numbers... there's part of the issue. It makes you wonder what might have happened if the men beat Germany last year... could the same thing happen with LD and a couple other stars? Does anyone else see that media coverage of the US Men's Basketball team has increased while NBA coverage has dwindled? I wonder if there's a danger in tieing into the national program too much.
At the time, what else did they have? And there was plenty of name recognition to work with. I don't look at that as having been a flaw.
"changed to more traditional rules (except SEM). " SEM? "The fact they were reliant on the women of '99 makes it look like that the WUSA, unlike MLS, wasn't promoting stars of the future. European nations are starting to develop professional women's leagues" Maybe they were too reliant on them at first but over the last 3 years, the foreign players and the younger players have been embraced by the fans and they were promoting stars of the future. Aly Wagner, Pichon, Meinert, and Wambach. All of these players have either become the favorite on their team or in Wambach's case, the most heralded new player since Mia Hamm. So I don't know about that.
"The WUSA never landed a game on network TV and didn't have a TV contract for the 2004 season. Its rating on the PAX cable channel averaged 0.1 this year" Is there any sporting league that is doing well nationally on TV without any games on ESPN? The WUSA had a couple of games this past season. 1 of them was a semifinal which they didn't show for the first 30 minutes to show a meaningless tennis match. ESPN makes or breaks the team sports in this country.
I believe it's appropriate to qoute the Bible here: Rejoiceth not in the iniquity of others, for thou mayest find Landon Donovan getting scythed down by Dema Kovalenko, yea and verily. Sachin