WPS owners decide to cancel 2012 season

[PCLoadLetter]

When I first saw the story I thought it was World Poker Series. You wonder if the MLS might do something - partner some women's teams with the men's teams, keep operating costs low by sharing expenses and facilities. Stage double-headers.

Why would MLS take its tenuous but improving financial footing and destroy it with something that is now and forevermore nothing but a money-suck?

I think the one way a women's league would work is to pair the teams with MLS teams and operate women's teams as amateur or semi-pro "sister" clubs. Play the games before the MLS games as double headers, and maybe play a few standalone games in small venues around the club's hometown.

British clubs do some variation of this, but I honestly have no idea how it works.

It would take some creative financials to get it to break even. If it's going to have any success at all, you'll need to have people like Hope Solo, Abby Wambach, Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe involved, and I don't know exactly how you make that happen. You could try a system where each team has two salaried players and the rest are amateurs, but I don't know if that's feasible. Maybe it's worth it to US Soccer to subsidize it somehow. I don't know.

Bottom line, right now there just isn't the support for a full women's pro league. WPS became a bit of a joke, but when a league is in trouble it's pretty damn hard to try to hold the line on basic standards. If you're desperate for owners, can you really turn your nose up at an asshole with money who wants to move a team and rename it FC Magicjack? And that may not even be the dumbest team name. Sky Blue FC? WTF? I actually saw a Sky Blue FC game on TV, and I just now Googled the team to find out where they were located. And when you go to their home page, you STILL won't know where they play. (The answer: New Jersey. Because if you think New Jersey, you think "Blue Skies.")

 

[YGBFKM]

Guess I'll continue waiting for sj's first "Woo, Pig Sooie!" thread.

 

[Piotr Rasputin]

WPS did have a couple of partnerships, unlike the more independent WUSA.

But the league's days were clearly numbered when the Los Angeles Sol folded after just one season. They had the best player, the best stadium, the strongest cross-ownership with a thriving MLS team (even if AEG really wanted no part of the team longterm).

But AEG couldn't find anyone to buy them, so they folded.

Then St. Louis, which is supposed to be this big soccer mecca, folded its franchise.

magicJack has been the most interesting story, frankly.

 

[LongTimeListener]

As I've said before and I'll say again and again -- if the idea that "participation = fandom" were true, wouldn't that mean we have 100 million former football players in America right now, including roughly 40 million women who used to play?

 

[SpeedTchr]

Damn, I was worried Microsoft put a kibosh on the 2012 Works season...

 

[HanSenSE]

WPS did have a couple of partnerships, unlike the more independent WUSA.

But the league's days were clearly numbered when the Los Angeles Sol folded after just one season. They had the best player, the best stadium, the strongest cross-ownership with a thriving MLS team (even if AEG really wanted no part of the team longterm).

But AEG couldn't find anyone to buy them, so they folded.

Then St. Louis, which is supposed to be this big soccer mecca, folded its franchise.

magicJack has been the most interesting story, frankly.

Add to the list the S.F. Bay area, where the defending champs folded.

 

[Mystery Meat II]

Now we'll never get FC Slap Chop

 

[apeman33]

Now we'll never get FC Slap Chop

Maybe this is the way the women's league ought to go. Teams name themselves after their sponsor, much like Japanese baseball teams do.

magicJack vs. FC Slap Chop
Shamwow FC vs. Team Ahhh Bra
Oxi Clean United vs. Priceline Negotiators
Real eHarmony vs. Chia Pet Athletic

 

[BYH]

Now we'll never get FC Slap Chop

This made me laugh very, very hard.

 

[NoOneLikesUs]

I think the one way a women's league would work is to pair the teams with MLS teams and operate women's teams as amateur or semi-pro "sister" clubs. Play the games before the MLS games as double headers, and maybe play a few standalone games in small venues around the club's hometown.

British clubs do some variation of this, but I honestly have no idea how it works.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FA_WSL

It has barely gotten off the ground over there. Pay is pretty much peanuts, but they have 16 teams involved.

I think it would be a good idea to perhaps attach a women's league to MLS, but they would have to be financially independent. Look, if Nike and Gatorade want to throw a shirt ton of cash at Hope Solo, Abby Wambach and Alex Morgan to promote their products, I think those stars should speak up and ask these companies to throw some scratch at women's professional or semi-pro soccer infrastructure.

Six to 10 clubs involved would be a good start. Cluster the teams. heck, I think Portland, Seattle and Vancouver would be a great West Coast cluster. You have more progressive fan bases in those cities and I would think at least a portion of the fan bases would come out to support anything with the Sounders, Timbers or Whitecaps logo. Maybe put a three-team cluster in the Northeast too (the Midwest has enough trouble with the men's teams). Play 12 regular season games in the cluster. Have the teams from the West and East meet at the end of the season for a championship. Don't overpay anyone. If the money isn't there, amateur it is. Just have something going to keep it breathing.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

When I first saw the story I thought it was World Poker Series. You wonder if the MLS might do something - partner some women's teams with the men's teams, keep operating costs low by sharing expenses and facilities. Stage double-headers.

Right because the MLS is making so much money...

I applaud the MLS and am very glad it's lasted as long as it has, but the notion that it can carry another league the way the NBA has carried the WNBA is absurd.

 

[Football_Bat]

This type of talk has been around for years.

The NBA is perfectly happy to hemmorrhage (?) money on the WNBA.

They just hemorrhaged a swimming-pool-full of their OWN money in the lockout, and it's still gushing.

NBA attendance has crashed; TV ratings are plummeting. At some point very very soon they are going to cut bait on the WNBA and pull the plug.

Some kind of women's pro basketball league will probably survive in some format but it'll probably be in smaller markets, in smaller arenas.

NBA TV ratings are plummeting? You sure? I've heard quite the opposite the past two seasons from just about every source. Game 6 of the Finals got a bigger audience than Game 6 of the World Series.

And until Nellie screwed the pooch in right field on the first final strike, the parallels between the two series were striking.

(GRRRRRRRRRRRR.)