Dearth of WUSA fans doomed league

AP via Raleigh News & Observer ^ | 9/18/03 | Jim Litke

[CanisRex]

or "How I Learned to Stop Producing Testosterone and Love Women's Sports"

No offense girls, but women's sports are not fun to watch. I have a few liberal friends who feel guilty and try to discuss women's sports with me but after a few obligitory "I took my kids to see the Courage last week and man. Those girls are good!" they drop the BS and we don't mention it again. Lib sportswriters are irritated that their utopia of sports can't make it in free market. It won't stop them, of course, they'll just browbeat some corporation to underwrite another league and it'll fail and the cycle will repeat.

[Will_Zurmacht]

I could save this league with two words...
Topless Soccer
What?....What'd I say?

[Cboldt]

"Dearth of fans" >ping<

Get's 'em every time. The free market speaks.

[cyborg]

Calling Vince McMahon right now...

[.cnI redruM]

Dearth of Fans....Doesn't stop the Montreal Expos.

[Flashman_at_the_charge]

No offense girls, but women's sports are not fun to watch.

Speak for yourself mate! :-p

[Billthedrill]

It's unheard of in professional sports.

Garbage. Has Jim the Eunuch ever head of the WFL? The North American Soccer League? Truth is, it happens all the time. The American Basketball Association hung on long enough to be absorbed into the NBA but it was headed the same direction.

The problem is that Jim-boy expected the league to succeed because the women in it deserved it, because they were women. That's why the "shame" comment was dropped into the article like the proverbial ordure into a punchbowl. It's all the fans' fault for not being worthy and politically conscious. Ballocks.

Well, there's always Slamball. That would have the additional merit of girls on trampolines. Think it over...

[cyborg]

Ohioan PING b/c I wonder what you think about this topic.

I am going to play rugby and cricket next year. Would I watch a pro-women's rugby game or cricket? Probably not unless it was very important. I hate to generalize but I've always seen the driving motivation behind professional women's sports as a competition against men,etc.

[Flashman_at_the_charge]

Damn picture didn’t show up. Click here.

[cyborg]

the one with the half naked wimmin? lol... what sport is that and is that featured in the Daily Sport as well?

[LasVegasMac]

Women's Gymnastics - yes. Fun to watch.

Women's Professional sports?. I'd watch a re-broadcast of a classic NFL / college / game / Nascar race first.

Way too boring. And, obviously, I'm not the only one with that opinion.

Let the paying fan be the judge. Not the liberal / femma-Nazis. If the fans will support it, it will work. If not, you had an idea that is not acceptable to the public. It's called reality. Your flaky dreams don't matter. Understand? Probably not.

LVM

[Flashman_at_the_charge]

Well if it's not already in the olympics, it should be.

[Will_Zurmacht]

They do always seem ticked off, now that you mention it. Subtle gripes about money and what not.
I will watch womens sports, like oh, I don't know, tennis occasionally, maybe some olympic events. Other than that...no thanks.

Though, I have always wanted to see that one game with young college chicks running around in plaid skirts using mini-hockey sticks to hit a ball in a goal.
I don't know why, but this game appeals to me somehow...
Unfortunately, theres always the issues with visiting elite womens college sports...restraining orders and whatnot....
so I'll probably never attend this fascinating game

[Senator Pardek]

Here's why it's dead - just take the gender issue out of it.

You have a bunch of people playing a sport and getting paid where many could not make it on a good boys HS basketball squad.

Who the hell wants to watch them?

[cyborg]

Though, I have always wanted to see that one game with young college chicks running around in plaid skirts using mini-hockey sticks to hit a ball in a goal

*** TOO MUCH BRITTANY SPEARS!!!!! Stop yourself before you get sucked in by the vacuum of Madonna's kiss.

[buccaneer81]

The American Basketball Association hung on long enough to be absorbed into the NBA but it was headed the same direction.

Same as the WHA (World Hockey Association) in the late 1970s. The successful teams joined the NHL.

[speedy]

Minnesota Fighting Saints ping.

[randog]

So, what we have here is a liberal that finally figured out one of life's truths--men like sports and women don't.

[whd23]

A marketing guru would have told them that it's all about packaging. These uniforms (and the team in them) would fill stadiums for years to come.

Saints be praised!

[SamAdams76]

"It is highly regrettable," concurred the Deseret News of Salt Lake City, "that athletic wear, fast food and sport nutrition companies that hand multimillion-dollar endorsement to individual athletes won't support a league in which players themselves had taken pay cuts and agreed to scaled-back rosters to help the struggling organization. It's unheard of in professional sports."

Well the editorial writer of the Deseret News of Salt Lake City gets first prize in cluelessness. Does this editorialist seriously think that corporations like Nike, McDonalds and Gatorade hand out multi-million dollar endorsements to athletes like Michael Jordan and Brett Favre out of charity? You've got to be kidding.

Those athletes get the endorsements because they are watched and admired by tens of millions of people and the endorsement of these stars bring millions of dollars in revenue back to the companies paying these endorsements out. On the other hand, you'd have trouble filling a VFW hall with admirers of even the most elite female athletes.

Women sports just don't go over very well. I wish I could come up with an intelligent explanation for it but I can't. When I flip channels and see a bunch of women playing basketball, soccer or some other team sport, I immediately start yawning and even that "Masterpiece Theatre" thing on PBS starts looking good.

Same for the women. Most women couldn't be bothered with sports, even sports featuring other women. They'd rather be out shopping or out at one of those Tupperware or lingerie parties than to go to a professional women's sporting event. Hell, they'd rather sit on the couch at home doing their nails and watching the latest wife-beater movie on the Lifetime channel.

You might laugh or snort in contempt, but it's true! Otherwise, these women's leagues wouldn't be folding like they are. Even that Women's Basketball Association is in real trouble. Nobody comes to the games, nobody watches on TV, nobody cares. Well, maybe not nobody. But most everybody.

Wish I had a better answer but I don't. Maybe women just weren't cut out to be sports fans. And maybe that's not such a bad thing. After all, supper still needs cooking when the men are all sitting around watching the football games.