I think the dumbass means Title IX, SpongeBob This sucks - I'd watch the women's matches & some of them were pretty good contests! From what I can tell, the WUSA was inspirational around the world as the best women's league. I hope EITHER: - the Women's World Cup will drive refounding the league with better mangement (I think there was some flap a few months ago?) or - MLS clubs will develop a women's squad (like the UK) I just hope they market the sport better next time, with less emphasis on them being women & more on the team qualities.
How desperate were the WUSA's investors to jump ship that they couldn't wait four more weeks to announce the folding? In four more weeks, the Women's World Cup might have generated enough buzz to get a few sponsors on board for next year, no? Allow me to be the first to say NANNY-NANNY BOO-BOO! I TOLD YOU SO! YOU GOT WHAT YOU DESERVED! Now maybe things will be set up the way they should've been set up in the first place: double-headers every week with a women's game first and a men's game second -- all under the same team names and logos MLS already has. First the Metrostars women play the Galaxy women, and then the Metrostars men play the Galaxy men. How difficult was this to figure out? Hey, corporate morons! Stop dividing the already small pie of soccer fans in the U.S. Do things that will bring the different soccer audiences (men, women, screaming young girls, brash young boys, families, eurosnobs, MLS-snobs, etc.) together, instead of driving them apart. Mia Hamm will look amazing in a DC United uniform, don't you think? And how great will Brandi Chastain look in an Earthquakes uniform? Get this done, boneheads, and I'll be more than happy to see you laugh all the way to the bank.
I think you got it wrong soccerdog - at least in part. From the USSF and WNT: And that's just the start. Certainly worth the read. http://www.ussoccer.com/news/fullstory.sps?iNewsid=43253&itype=113&iCategoryID=0
Re: Re: Sad, but a fact of life good point, but I'm sure MLS - or any other league - would love to have McDonald's as a sponsor nonetheless.
Never mind the anti-soccer boobs (pun definitely NOT intended). I wonder if this news would shake the already weak confidence the sporting public has on the capitalist system, especially on the U.S. soccer-promotion front. Let's face it, in a weak economy, things like the WUSA are considered "excess" in the business circles. IMO, beyond the state of the economy, the business community is suffering from a lack of vision and scope. Nobody (except for stand-up guys like AEG) wants to make that bold step to distinguish themselves from the competition and, therefore, put themselves in a strong position to gain market share. There's so much timidity that it's really sickening. Oh, these are the days when I wish we were like England, where the real football is religion and people are willing to die for the club teams. OK. I wasn't really suggesting that last part.
Well, I feel sorry for the people (players, staff, coaches) that are out of jobs today. I hope that if MLS has any openings for staff that they look to keep the cream of the crop from WUSA employed. There were some very hard working and motivated folks working with the Freedom, and other teams I'm sure. Now, the natural question which has already been addressed is why is MLS different? Simple, compare the basic revenue sources the two leagues were built to rely upon: WUSA: sponsors, tickets, and merchandise MLS: sponsors, transfer fees from player development, tickets, merchandise, and stadia revenue I think we can be pretty sure that with more sincere investors (less clouded by parental bliss) and more revenue sources that MLS is here to stay for the near future. However, the stadia have to be the absolute priority at this point...no question. Corporate sponsors flock to new stadia, revenue flows in, and fans pay up. Even if the "bubble" from a new stadium goes away after a year or two, the sponsors will come back if the fans were there and the revenue keeps on flowing. Cheers, Tim
There is so much singleminded ignorance on these boards.... The next 4 weeks would have cost the league a ton of cash. A ton, with only a faint hope of return. The WUSA would have been holding more expensive catered events for rich people and corporations that cost a ton of $$$$$$$. Basically the equation came down to what to do with the limited cash on hand: 1) pay a severence to the folks who worked for the last 3 years or 2) splurge it all on a bunch of folks who've had plenty of chances to get involved and passed. And the publicity they're getting by taking option #1 actually helps take care of part of what they hoped to do with #2 - except that there aren't any trouffles.
Re: Re: Re: Sad, but a fact of life Chipotle (a McDonald's company, or at least it was) sponsors DCU.
- Sponsors can still be courted during the World Cup. It just won’t come on the WUSA’s dime. Ears can be bent but it will come on the USSF and FIFA’s time. - MLS has to sustain it’s self before it can help carry a women’s league. Also there are quite a few MLS fans that say “the women’s game is boring. I won’t get to the United game until warm-ups.” I am not one of those people but there are more of those people than you might think. So you notion of nothing but double headers while on the surface might be a good idea still has many flaws McDonalds would be a solid sponsor. As for the others you have to go after your target audience. Now what is the target demographic for a WUSA? Soccer Mom’s and their families. So you are going to see basically the same sponsor sets as you would get for afternoon soap operas. It has nothing to do with a commitment to soccer but an expected return. They get a solid steady return from the soap opera watching crowd and while they are targeting similar markets the WUSA was not going to give the same bang for their buck. Agreed Andy and as I said above any last ditch efforts can still be made during the tornament just not on the WUSA's nickel.
Although I feel sorry for the players and the fans, this league was poorly run from the get go. Bad decisions, bad business plans from its inception. Its annoying to me that the usual soccer naysayers can now spend the week pointing at the WUSA and saying, "See, soccer will never succeed in the US." When the truth is just that a fledgling women's soccer league didn't need to start off playing at stadia the size of RFK and spending millions of dollars.
Re: Re: No chick soccer Title 29 is a little known ruling that allows "frickin morons" like Salad Shooter equal posting opportunities on BigSoccer.
Thank you, Tim, for acknowledging that it's not just the players who lost their jobs, but also the behind-the-scenes people who are now looking for work.
Not a bad idea -- except for the weeknight games. I can see a league in which the teams/logos are based on the MLS clubs: New England Minutewomen Los Angeles Stars San Jose Tremors Chicago Inferno Dallas Pintos Kansas City Charm But is there a female equivalent for the Crew's construction workers? And Washington could be either the Eagles, or the Freedom, with a black eagle in the logo instead of that walking mustache ....
Valid point: how many hard-core WUSA fans are there outside of Atlanta and Washington? (crickets) There you go.
I agree with most of what you said expect the above....while you're right that the target demographic was made to be soccer moms and their families, I think it was a mistake to do so. You look at the way other womens' sports are covered and WUSA looked like Lilith Fair with shin guards in comparison. The focus should be firmly placed on the athleticism and the game and not on making every game a mother-daughter picnic. I have no doubt Ladie's top-flight will make a comeback...I'd say probably within 2 or 3 years after WWC03, I just hope they don't make the same mistakes. As for McDonald's...sure, I like money too. but that's all they'd be. McD's has no real interest in the success of soccer other than a peripheral investement. MLS had these types of investors as well (SMG, etc) that bailed around the same time (3-5years) that WUSA's did. The difference was we didn't hinge our bank account on those fair weather supporters. Investors like Good ole Uncle Phil and cousin Lamar stepped in to take over abandoned teams and pump more dollars into the league. WUSA didn't have this foundation of support to keep the league afloat when low ratings and quiet gates scared the opportunists away. I'm all for opportunists throwing money at us....so long as we have a firm backup for when they inevitably panic.
They still do. Does Honda or Radio Shack have any interest in the sport, other than getting its name on shirts, stadium advertising, and paying for TV commercials? No. With sponsorship it's a means to an end - placement in the hopes of increasing market share. With Pepsi and Bud, it's also the selling of a lifestyle that goes with the sport - go to the game, enjoy one of our official beverages. Here are the MLS Corporate Partners: ADT Security Services Downy Fabric Softener Mardi Gras Paper Towels MBNA America Bank Nestle Milo Panasonic Tide Detergent Nothing soccer-related there, unless you watch the games on your Panasonic TV and keep your rec or kids league uniform clean and soft with Tide and Downy. That's pretty tangential.
Agreed, but these are all peripheral investors. If they decided to bail (we had a lot more that did a few years ago) we would still have Adidas, Nike, Mitre, Umbro, Kwikgoal, Atletica, AEG, the Kraft family, and Lamar Hunt. If fans are the bread and butter of keeping MLS alive, then these sponsors I've mentioned are the plate and butter knife. It was their support of soccer in America in general over simply turning a profit (AEG has yet to see a profit from it's MLS investment despite being our deepest pocket) that kept MLS going for another 4 years instead of folding in on itself as WUSA has.
Oh lord no...that would be repulsive. That's what I hate about the WNBA; granted, I can see why they do it, obviously being a marketing ploy for the NBA. Especially when they can't come up with a name equivalent to counter the NBA team (Indiana Fever?!?). I'd say MLS would have to reach 25 years of existence before a viable and independent womens' league could be formed. Even so, I wouldn't want any sort of close association with MLS, because: 1-if they tank, that'll make the league look bad (kinda like how the XFL tanked and NBC came out the worse for it instead of WWE). It may not induce the doom-and-gloom feeling for soccer then that we're seeing now, but it won't help the league's image or pocketbook any to have a "splinter cell" (so to speak) fail. 2-it wouldn't look good for the womens' game in general to constantly need the support of the "male" league to sustain womens' football outside of FIFA-sanctioned "equal-opportunity" tournaments (which is what the WWC feels like to me...not from any misogynistic view). If the ladies can stand on their own with as little intervention from MLS as possible, that'll show that womens' soccer is accepted, and female sports leagues as general. As always, IMO.
Adidas, Nike, Mitre, Umbro, Kwik-Goal, and Atletica (and a handful of others) fall under the category of Official Suppliers, not sponsors. You can find the list of MLS Partners here. WUSA had the following listed as League Sponsors: Hyundai Band-Aid Clean & Clear AFLAC Maytag McDonald's Coca-Cola Dasani Water (a product of Coca-Cola company) PowerAde (ditto) Gillette Venus Charles Schwab Pepcid Dried Plums PAX MBNA US Soccer Foundation National Soccer Coaches Association of America AYSO US Youth Soccer In addition, they had Met Rx, Kwik-Goal, Official Sports, and Select Sport as Suppliers. Now, I don't know how much those corporations were paying to get Official Sponsorship, but that's still quite a list. According to Hendricks, the league needed eight sponsors to spend $2.5 million each per year. But it seems like that would cover the pullout of the cable companies, who were the primary investors in the league, rather than replace the existing Official Sponsors.
As someone who followed the NASL and watched it fold, I feel bad for WUSA fans. What WUSA's demise really says to me, though, is this: Now more than ever, MLS really needs our support. That, and new stadia/more control of revenue streams; and I hope that the league continues towards those goals.
On point #1 I agree with you 100% on point #2, however, not totally. I don't see a problem with cooperation between male and female couterparts in the same sport (it's working quite well in England). In fact I think this notion of male and female leagues having to exist apart from each other is partly to blame for WUSA's demise. The WNBA made the same mistake. At the beginning, a lot of basketball fans went to out to support teams like the Orlando Miracle in my native Florida but were quickly alienated by the overwhelmingly feminist vibe. The basketball was less important than the gender and that turned pure basketball fans off. WUSA did the same thing. I don't think it's a good idea for MLS to take on a women's league right now since MLS is still finding its own feet and womens' team sports (compared to individual sports like tennis) have traditionally had a harder time in the US, but I don't think it would be a bad thing. Every other sport in America has male and female counterparts that support each other (gymnastics, golf, tennis, figureskating, volleyball, etc.). Soccer in America should be no different.