Foudy says US women’s league can rise again

By Steve James

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A women’s professional soccer league
could rise again in the United States, with a little help from
the men, former American captain Julie Foudy believes.

“I am cautiously optimistic it’s going to be back,” said
Foudy, nearly three years after the U.S. experiment with a
women’s league ended.

“The women’s game attracts a different market than the
men’s game. I think they can build on each other,” Foudy told
Reuters in a recent interview.

The eight-team WUSA (Women’s United Soccer Association),
was born in the euphoria of the American victory in the 1999
Women’s World Cup.

After just three seasons, however, the league suspended
operations in September 2003 under a mountain of debt.

The Atlanta Beat, Boston Breakers, Carolina Courage, New
York Power, Philadelphia Charge, San Diego Spirit, San Jose
CyberRays and Washington Freedom disappeared into sports
history.

Foudy, who has an Olympic gold medal and two World Cup
titles and played 271 times for the United States, was captain
of the San Diego Spirit in those heady days of the women’s
league.

She feels the WUSA needed to take things more slowly for
the sports public to recognize it as a legitimate league in
North America’s crowded sports landscape.

“Sponsorship was good, our revenue was steady, it’s just
that our expenses were way out of line,” she said. “We wanted
to come off with a bang and it took the NFL (National Football
League) decades to get where they are and the NBA (National
Basketball Association).

“The WNBA is doing well but they’re still growing,” she
said of the women’s basketball league, which was owned directly
by the NBA when it was formed 10 years ago.

SMALLER STADIUMS

So what would she do differently now? “Don’t spend $50
million in your first year,” she said of player salaries,
staff, overheads and facilities that throttled the WUSA.

“Now you are seeing an environment where there is a
potential for sharing infrastructure with a lot of teams,” she
said, pointing to the 10-year-old men’s U.S. league.

Most of the 12 Major League Soccer (MLS) teams began
playing in front of 20,000 crowds in huge American football
stadiums that hold 80,000. Now that they are more solid
financially they have invested in smaller, soccer-specific
stadiums of their own.

The Los Angeles Galaxy and Chivas USA share a stadium in
southern California, FC Dallas and the Chicago Fire moved from
NFL homes to soccer-friendly ones and the New York Red Bulls
are due to leave Giants Stadium for Newark, New Jersey, next
year.

“They own their stadiums so you’re not paying out $50,000 a
game (in rent),” said Foudy. “You could see a combination with
MLS guys, A-League (minor league) owners and independent
owners. (But) I don’t think it will be a WMLS,” she said,
referring to the close relationship between the NBA and WNBA.

“With the movement to build soccer-specific stadiums, it
obviously helps the women’s game. They (MLS) need tenants.

“A lot of these teams are still young or with new ownership
and it doesn’t make sense for a lot of them to take on another
entity yet until they get their business in line. But I think
MLS is turning a corner which is great to see,” she said.

Foudy acknowledges the realities of soccer in America,
where the men’s game struggles to gain a foothold despite giant
strides made by U.S. players joining European leagues and
playing in five consecutive World Cups.

SCHOOL LEVEL

Men’s soccer remains very much a sport played by immigrants
or by U.S.-born children at school level but not beyond.
Women’s soccer, in contrast, has been embraced by suburbia.

“There can be a market for it (women’s soccer) in different
areas where there are largely different demographics,” said
Foudy. She believes, however, that American soccer officials
will have their work cut out to replace the team that won the
2004 women’s Olympic title in a swansong for Mia Hamm, Brandi
Chastain, Foudy and Kristine Lilly.

“It’s hard right now, we win the Olympics and then we go
largely unnoticed for the last year-and-a-half — which is a
problem U.S. Soccer is going to have to address.”

With several women’s internationals scheduled for American
television in the coming year, there was a chance to build up
the next big names, she said. “No one knows them because they
haven’t been playing.

“Just like branding a company, you’ve got to get them in
front of the public.”

Foudy said that the focus, quite rightly, was on the men
during the run-up to this year’s World Cup in Germany. “But you
can’t forget the women in those two-year gaps.”

Does she think it odd though that only in North America is
the women’s game probably more popular than the men’s?

“That’s the question I always get from English reporters
and German reporters…Obviously America loves winners, and we
won, so that resonates.”