I was a little disappointed that neither Brittany Taylor nor Meghan Schnur made the National Team roster. If we don't win the World Cup we will know why.
Anyway, I hate to be negative, but sometimes you also have to be realistic, which gets to my next bit of writing on the business of Women's Pro Soccer...
Speaking of Women's Soccer I can't for the life of me understand why the WPS is going to play through the World Cup. The league has had several teams fold, and while that is normal when a league is starting up, it's happened a little too much and to too many good teams. Let's just say it's not good when the leagues offices were in Los Angeles and than had most teams West of the Adirondacks, and all west of the Mississippi River, fold.
A struggling league could have used a year off, without "canceling" the league. With the Women's World Cup coming up chances are that people will be oversaturated with women's soccer. There isn't a lot of demand for the sport so why create more demand by playing games when the games premier event takes place. On top of this the league is losing it's stars to the World Cup. The league lacks star power. Playing with even less star players for a month will only hurt the league. They will lose more money with even LESS reasons to attend games.
I think the hope is that the World Cup brings an attendance boost after the cup is over and players return to their teams. That should happen, but I don't think it will happen to the point that it will make up for months of games between non world cup players. I think taking time a year off for the cup would have been the smart decision. The league would still welcome back players, but just next season. It would also give the league another year to reorganize their operations and figure things out.
So far things look depressing for women's soccer fans. Only two games have had 4,000 people or more. One game had less than 1,000 fans. Another had just over 950 fans. UCONN's home games against Notre Dame and Penn State outdrew three of the twelve WPS games this season...the game against Notre Dame was only three people short of having the same number as a fourth WPS game.. UCONN vs Providence outdrew two games. I hate saying this but numbers that low make no financial sense to me.
Player salaries, front office salaries, referee salaries, coaches salaries plus overhead, marketing costs, field costs, security costs etc. seems to be a lot more than the $20 of revenue (an estimate..pure guess..of ticket cost, food, concessions, parking) per person that attends.
If you like the sport, you have to get to pro games this year, or atleast watch the games on Fox Soccer Channel. Eventually there can be a league. I want to do some research to see how many pro leagues there were before MLB, the NFL, MLS and the NBA took off. I have a feeling that the WUSA and WPS will have similar fates.
I wish the league took a year off. I just think it would have helped it out so much.
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