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Monday, September 10, 2007
Is WWC being Shanghaied?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As the games were set to begin in China, the Sisters of Perpetual Indignance were already at it:
The Women’s World Cup is being screwed, most notably by FIFA. And right here at home.
Off the Ball was going to get up early and catch a bit of Monday’s opener that turned out to be an 11-0 rout by the German champions over Argentina. But her mood was notably soured by the perpetually annoying Christine Brennan of USA Today, who was yakking on NPR that the fathers of football just don’t care, scheduling this event in September, when American gridiron and men’s domestic soccer leagues around the world are in action.
And why don’t they care? Because FIFA’s one of the last bastions of male chauvinism in sports, apparently. Now, Sepp Blatter and the boys aren’t going to rate any comparisons to Alan Alda and could probably care less about what appeals to Oprah-esque notions of You-Go-Girl culture.
But Christine, they’re not the Taliban either. Once Off the Ball stopped grousing at the radio, whipped up a pot of coffee and thought about it a little more, she detected an enormous amount of frustration.
And it’s understandable, to a point. Ever since the WWC was a big hit on these shores eight years ago, feminist sports advocates (mostly American) have insisted that women’s soccer was going to go through the roof. There would be no stopping a viable domestic league, which would attract the world’s top players, which in turn would spur on the growth of the sport in countries where soccer defines macho culture.
Yes, the sold-out crowds in NFL stadiums that culminated with Brandi Chastain brandishing a black sports bra would unleash a global revolution that would finally embrace the ideal of athletic women, taking their rightful places in sports and society.
I exaggerate only slightly to make a few points. As someone who covered the last two Women’s World Cups and the Women’s United Soccer Association that existed between those two events, I had an up-close view of this phenomenon. And that’s really what it was, in terms of being a spectator sport, for reasons I’ll get to in a minute.
Brennan’s whiny diatribe covered all the familar points made by the activists — that if only these-male dominated organizations better promoted women’s soccer, it wouldn’t be so invisible. She only mentioned in passing that perhaps one large reason for the lack of interest in the U.S. is that Chastain, Mia Hamm and Julie Foudy are all retired (although we have to endure the latter in the ESPN studio if we want to watch the WWC).
Kristine Lilly remains, at the age of 36, as does ex-Atlanta Beat goalie Briana Scurry, and there is a dynamic group of younger players, some groomed in the WUSA, who make the Americans a favorite again.
Also, the tournament is halfway around the world, with the first U.S. game against North Korea slated for 5 a.m. Tuesday, Atlanta time. Because Off the Ball’s cat has to be fed at the crack of dawn, an attempt will be made to watch the second half.
But honestly, Christine, your worn-out bag of complaints just doesn’t cut it any longer. Want to know why? Because for all the young girls who continue to play the game, get a college scholarship, etc., that hasn’t translated into spectator interest in women’s soccer. It’s hard enough for American soccer organizers to get Yanks to watch MLS and the U.S. men’s national team on a regular basis. They know better than to kvetch about it, and they’re very well aware that signing David Beckham isn’t going to create the magic exilir.
The problem with the spiel mournfully unfurled by Brennan and the like is that it’s in the past. If only, if only, we could still party like it’s 1999!
What they fail to admit is that WWC ‘99 was a one-off, as the Brits say. It wasn’t going to guarantee the success of WUSA, which was a fatal assumption its creators built into to the initial business model. Attendance and television ratings couldn’t justify the money being spent, and corporate sponsorship dried up.
But spotty management wasn’t the culprit here: There just never was the interest in a women’s soccer league to reflect the media exposure, salaries and profile that Foudy and the Women’s Sports Foundation, et al, insisted would follow: If You Build It, They Will Come.
It was worth trying, to be sure, just not on the scale that WUSA aimed for. And that’s something that the activists can’t admit. Someone, or something else, has to be blamed. The women have to be victims, at mercy of ruthless, cold-hearted people who just don’t care.
On the day the WUSA died, Off the Ball talked to former Atlanta Beat coach Tom Stone, a reporter’s quoting dream who had a real quick one when she told him of all the young girls in metro Atlanta who wept upon hearing the news:
If more of their parents would have brought them to our games, they wouldn’t be crying today.
It was a joy to cover that league, its players and coaches and personalities. But they always were on borrowed time.
The WWC that followed in 2003, played also in the U.S., didn’t resonate a bit, and not just because it was quickly relocated from China due to the SARS epidemic. Because of the WUSA’s demise weeks before, media interest fizzled. It was awful timing, to be sure, but there also was the realization that you can’t live off one event.
As great as WWC ‘99 was — and it was electric, beyond belief — it’s over. Great memories, to be sure. But only memories. Why is that so hard to understand?
As for the biggest soccer game of interest in America over the weekend, Brennan couldn’t be bothered with mentioning that the Brazil men topped the U.S. 4-2 Sunday in Chicago.
And not just any Brazil team. Ronaldinho. Kaka. Etc. Etc.
Yes, it was a friendly. But it was BRAZIL. For all of the wonderful success of the women’s team over the years, I’ve long maintained that the growth of spectator interest in soccer in this country owes much to how well the U.S. men’s national team program develops. If I were a man, I’m sure I’d be called a sexist for making that statement.
But it’s truly lame for people like Christine Brennan to moan about the women being ignored when she passes herself off as an expert only when major events roll around.
I covered women’s athletics — basketball even more than soccer — for more than a decade and saw that despite the enormous growth in interest and a huge upshoot in TV games, for example, there is a limit to it. I never saw Brennan in the trenches, game after game, year after year, getting a realistic sense of where women’s sports really existed in the public imagination. She swooped down on the Women’s Final Four, WWC, Olympics, etc., like Gloria Swanson descending the stairs in diva-like fashion in “Sunset Boulevard,” there to write the big-picture pieces, full of hyperbole and mushy melodrama that only Norma Desmond could appreciate.
It’s too bad NPR listeners and those who can manage to get through one of her USA Today columns without emitting a primal scream are routinely mistreated to such facile takes on complex topics.
Those soccer fanatics who want to watch the games, will — no matter the time of day, or the time of year. And jeepers, if this site can give the WWC some love, then perhaps it’s doing better than the Sisterhood will ever be willing to admit.
