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Foudy says US women's league can rise again

Posted on: Tuesday, 25 July 2006, 20:01 CDT

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."

Source: REUTERS

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