Committee To Save WUSA Planning Series Of Soccer Festivals
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WUSA Committee Planning
Festivals To Drum Up Support |
By Josh Rosen,
Staff Writer, The Sports Business Daily
Former WUSA Boston Breakers President & GM Joe Cummings, a
member of the committee trying to revive WUSA, said Saturday during a panel
discussion at the National Soccer Coaches Association of America's annual convention
in Charlotte, NC, that his committee is planning three "soccer festivals" to
be held in three different cities the weekends of June 11-13, 18-20 and 25-27.
Cummings: "The festivals will showcase the players from the past WUSA rosters.
... We will be bringing all of the players in each weekend, so that any city
hosting one of these festivals would know that they would have access to these
players. There would be 64 players that would be playing in the festival matches,
and another 26 players, or upward of 26 players, that would be available for
all of the events around the matches." Cummings said the group has 22 RFPs out
to communities, stadiums and organizing committees interested in hosting the
festivals. Cummings said players will likely arrive in the cities on Thursday
evening, with media opportunities and sponsor luncheons on Friday. Saturday
would feature clinics during the day, followed by evening doubleheaders, with
the players returning to their homes Sunday. Cummings: "It gives cities across
the United States the opportunity to see that the WUSA is alive again in some
form ... and we can keep the branding and the energy going of the league."
FUTURE: After the panel discussion, Cummings told THE
DAILY that while WUSA teams will not have offices or a playing presence in their
respective home cites, the team, "as an entity, the business component of it
— camps and clinics and youth teams and all of that — is still in
existence." Meanwhile, WUSA Founder John Hendricks will continue to make sponsorship
presentations over the next four to five months, and Cummings said the league
and teams will reopen their offices "if we find out that we're at a threshold
as far as dollars." Cummings added that even if no sponsorships are sold, "We're
still doing these festivals in '04. But that would be the end of the WUSA" (THE
DAILY).
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