Tuesday, September 16, 2003

How many leagues will have to fold and how much money will have to be wasted before everyone finally realizes that Americans don't give a flying rat's behind about soccer?

This year, it's the folding of the WUSA, which is a women's professional soccer league that I didn't even realize existed until today. This league now joins the ranks of the literally dozens of flopped American professional soccer leagues over the years. Apparently, this particular league wanted to cash in on the brief flash-in-the-pan of the 1999 Women's World Cup championship won by Team USA. People got excited for about two weeks, and somebody thought they could build a business out of it.

According to the article in today's SportsLine.com:
But the attention the Women's World Cup received faded over the years, leaving the WUSA foundering. TV ratings were almost nonexistent and the league had trouble finding fans who weren't under 18 and play on a soccer team. Average attendance slipped from more than 8,000 the first season to about 6,700 a game last season.
I could have told you that four years ago.

Let me say it again for anyone who has a few million bucks they're planning to waste on starting the next failed U.S. soccer league: Americans are about as interested in soccer as they were in Yahoo Serious. Like Mr. Serious, soccer is a third-world entity that just doesn't play in civilized countries. In America, where we can afford baseball gloves and football helmets, a bunch of people running around aimlessly in circles for two hours not using their hands, resulting in a 1-1 tie, is not entertainment.

There is another tangent bearing investigation here, which is the systematic foisting of women's sports on an unwanting and thoroughly uninterested American public. But that's another post for another day.

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