That’s all fine and good. Someone just has to pay for it. If someone is willing to pay for it until it becomes financially viable I’m cool with it.

What I’m not cool with is any sort of general expectation that women “deserve” a pro soccer league “just because”. They need to put on their big girl panties and succeed in the real world. If they can succeed then good for them. If not then the market will have spoken and women’s soccer needs to go out and find some really smart business people to create a model that will effectively leverage all of this demand for pro women’s soccer that you feel actually exists.

I hope they make it work, but it’s on them to make it happen.

The bottom line isn’t as simple as you think, although ultimately it may very well turn out that way. But you don’t have a crystal ball anymore than the National League had when it started out around 1870 or 1880 — and they lost several teams in their first few years. Did your crystal ball tell you that attendance would nearly double for WPS after the World Cup? Did your crystal ball tell you that 15 million people would watch the WC final on TV? What did your crystal ball tell you about women’s tennis? What did your crystal ball tell you about MLS when it was down to 3 owners propping up the league to keep it going? It would’ve been very easy to tell soccer fans (men’s soccer, MLS fans) about 12 years ago:

“There aren’t enough paying customers that want to watch pro soccer. (here in America) There never have been. If there were the league would be solvent and we wouldn’t be having the discussion.”

The bottom line is pretty simple. There aren’t enough paying customers that want to watch women’s pro soccer. There never have been. If there were the league would be solvent and we wouldn’t be having the discussion.

It’s fine that you’re a true believer but you really should try to allow a bit of logic into the conversation instead of the conspiracy theory of “other agendas”. If you and your fellow enthusiasts could actually marshall enough interest to make this a compelling sports entertainment product it would pay for itself. But then you couldn’t blame the “evil others” that are plotting against women’s soccer when in reality pro women’s soccer isn’t going to die because anyone is actively trying to kill it. If it dies it will do so because there isn’t enough legitimate interest to make it work.

Finally, the Olympics aren’t professional sports. I have no problem if the USOC decides to support our women soccer participants if the pro version doesn’t work. Just because some people like a sport doesn’t make it a viable professional product. Just ask all of those Olympic athletes that know full well they are amateurs and don’t expect that just because they compete successfully in the Olympics they somehow “deserve” a successful pro league.

You say “maybe the remaining owners are willing to stick with it for the foreseeable future regardless of losses but I doubt it” – “You doubt it?” What’s your evidence? Sorry that’s your already made-up mind talking — the fact is they’re willing to be in for next year. We’re not talking about them not ponying up; we’re talking about the Federation taking away their certification and making it impossible to operate.

Capitalism? I’m fine enough with capitalism – I have a problem with people who hide their other ideological agendas behind it. What other agendas? How about their hypersensitivity over “affirmative action” or “reverse discrimination” ? For some reason a struggling women’s soccer league bothers Brian over some sense of ‘entitlement” but he has the nerve to compare it to Olympic athletes, many of whom receive stipends, support, subsidies from one of many athletic organizations. Correct me if I’m wrong but I didn’t hear a reply the first time around.

We all know that “millions have been thrown at” women’s soccer? Yes, but let’s distinguish between WUSA and WPS. WPS isn’t burning through money anywhere near the rate WUSA did.

You do realize the early failure rate in American sports in even the “major” sports as we know them now? Baseball? NFL? NBA? (how about ABA?) NHL – stayed on 6 teams for a couple decades, didn’t it? It’s kind of fun to look up that stuff in Wikipedia. And more recently, you know that MLS was down to 3 owners within a few years – they just happened to prop up the league by owning multiple teams. And we’re not even getting started on taxpayer-funded stadiums yet… So perhaps we shouldn’t be so smug about “sustainable business models” or preaching “it isn’t social work, it’s a business” when after Year 3 zero out of 6 teams are folding for financial reasons.

Sorry if I’m somewhat undiplomatic. You, Ms Parker and others all seem reasonable folks who I don’t usually go out of my way to alienate. And of course you could be right. But I’ve concluded that in case I’m the one who’s right, it’s no time for Mr Nice Guy. Instead people need a bit of a jolt.
Craig
Los Angeles

Maybe the remaining five owners are willing to stick with it for the foreseeable future regardless of losses but I doubt it. Maybe there are people willing to launch expansion franchises, but it’s clearly not a hot (or even warm) business opportunity or they would have already signed up.

It isn’t social work, it’s a business. It looks like you aren’t particularly impressed with capitalism which is fine, but that’s the system we live in here in the U.S. so it kinda is what it is. If it is going to be a true pro league there has to be a reasonable roadmap to profitability or there is no real business and eventually there will be no league.

The real Dreamworld is populated by people that don’t see the world as it is so they never get where they want to go because they never step up to the real problem in the first place. If women’s soccer can’t land on a sustainable business model then maybe the US Soccer Federation should step into the breach and support the national team members as you suggest.

Really? You don’t think the US Olympic Committee and other national athletic federations are supporting and subsidizing potential Olympic athletes? You know, right here with women’s soccer, without a league next year what the US Soccer Federation will do is pay national team members a salary and set up residency camps to train for and prepare fore the Olympics. Just like they’ve done in the past when there wasn’t a Division I league. Sorry to shatter your laissez-faire capitalist dreamworld.
- CRaig

I have to put it bluntly – that’s a bunch of crap. We don’t know that. Attendance after the World Cup went up 80% and that was spread out over 5 or 6 weeks of the WPS season and playoffs. We don’t know how much of that will be sustained and we won’t know until next season, or even until the Olympics to see whether it retriggers interest should the US women qualify for it.

Guys like Ridge don’t have any crystal ball anymore than people did who said 40 years ago that no one would watch women play tennis. More recently, who predicted that the last Women’s World Cup would set a record for the highest-rated daytime program in ESPN’s history?

All this is is conventional wisdom and you know how that goes. It’s conventional alright; the wisdom part, I dunno…

He talks about the WNBA. Is he even aware of how many teams are still affiliated with NBA teams vs how many are independently owned?

He says, “The bottom line is, MLS has survived by focusing on the bottom line, and that isn’t likely to change.” – More crap – the MLS, like every other new sports league in the US lost several teams in its early going. Just like baseball, the NBA, the NFL, NHL. MLS was down to 2 or 3 owners who wound up owning multiple teams and bankrolling losses in the tens of millions.

“Passion doesn’t pay the bills”, he says. No doubt but someone for some reason is willing to pay the bills for next season. Zero teams — that’s zero out of 6 — are bailing on the league to cut their financial losses this year. that includes magicJack, the team the rest of the league is trying to terminate for a whole host of other reasons that have to with its owner’s compatibility with the rest of the league.

Reportedly, there are a few serious investor inquiries into joining the league. Sounds like some others are willing to pay the bill. At this point what isn’t clear is whether they are willing to either, A) put up with having magicJack’s owner as their partner in the league, or B) join the league when it may become mired in litigation with magicJack.

Women’s soccer faces a tough road — no one’s pretending otherwise — but navigating a tough road can’t be done by abandoning course to satisfy those who have been naysayers all along. Mr Wilt isn’t one of those original naysayers. But he’s caving in to them.
- Craig

@Andy Crossley Thanks for the correction about WPS not being a single entity structure. I’ve fixed that in the text. And thanks for your perspective, having been on the front lines in all this.

@Ridge sums up a lot of what I’ve thought and seen over the years, and I hope that whomever takes up the mantle from here will be as bottom-line oriented as MLS. I didn’t know Anson Dorrance had come up with this idea years ago, so thanks for passing that along.

Ridge is absolutely right about other women’s pro sports, and I wish it’s something advocates would try to understand instead of playing the blame game. Or, as he says, insist on living in a dream world. But that’s a topic for another blog post.

@nickp Given Carly Fiorina’s track record — business and political — maybe it was good thing she wasn’t in the room. I agree that MLS and WPS need to join forces. American soccer as a spectator sport over the last 15 years has grown phenomenally, and there’s a place for the women’s game in all this. For now, it’s just not where some of its biggest boosters would like for it to be.

@PASoccerdad I’m sorry your comment was wiped out. If you’d like to try posting it again, I’d love to add it to the discussion.