Menu
Download the app

SBJ subscribers – Enhance your experience with the revamped iOS app

Leagues and Governing Bodies

Kick Start: Discussions Of Starting A New Women's Soccer League Underway

Despite the failure of the WUSA and the WPS in the past decade, it appears it is "time to try again" to create a pro women's soccer league in the U.S., according to Amalie Benjamin of the BOSTON GLOBE. There was a “meeting in Chicago last week” that involved "former WPS owners, representatives from MLS, U.S. Soccer, and U.S. Youth Soccer, former players, former national team coach and WUSA commissioner Tony DiCicco, and representatives from the USL.” They discussed “logistics, finances, partnerships, a future,” as well as “managed expectations and modest hopes.” The options “have seemed twofold.” Either the women’s league “should be smaller, a league where players have other jobs and other ways of supporting themselves, or it should be attached to Major League Soccer.” But with MLS “not interested, it appears the first option is the way women’s soccer is headed.” The “likely result is a 12-16-team league built from franchises that already exist in semi-pro and pro-am leagues.” U.S. Soccer “seems likely to be a part, though the role is yet to be determined.” USSF President Sunil Gulati: “We’re absolutely willing to be actively involved in it in a way that makes sense for us, for the clubs and leagues that are involved, and the role that the federation has.” Former WPS Boston Breakers Managing Partner Michael Stoller said, “Both WUSA and WPS basically looked for a bunch of rich people to fund a start-up with a tremendous cost structure, not on the league level but on a team level, that wasn’t sustainable at that level. It was just too high a starting point.” Benjamin notes operating budgets in the new league "are expected to stay around $500,000 to $750,000, half of what some teams were losing per year in the WPS, with no salary cap.” Instead of the 5,000-8,000 fans WUSA expected, the "hope would be that the new league could draw maybe 2,000 per game.” Teams would play “in smaller venues with more manageable costs” (BOSTON GLOBE, 7/6).

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 25, 2024

NFL meeting preview; MLB's opening week ad effort and remembering Peter Angelos.

Big Get Jay Wright, March Madness is upon us and ESPN locks up CFP

On this week’s pod, our Big Get is CBS Sports college basketball analyst Jay Wright. The NCAA Championship-winning coach shares his insight with SBJ’s Austin Karp on key hoops issues and why being well dressed is an important part of his success. Also on the show, Poynter Institute senior writer Tom Jones shares who he has up and who is down in sports media. Later, SBJ’s Ben Portnoy talks the latest on ESPN’s CFP extension and who CBS, TNT Sports and ESPN need to make deep runs in the men’s and women's NCAA basketball tournaments.

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

Shareable URL copied to clipboard!

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2012/07/06/Leagues-and-Governing-Bodies/Womens-soccer.aspx

Sorry, something went wrong with the copy but here is the link for you.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2012/07/06/Leagues-and-Governing-Bodies/Womens-soccer.aspx

CLOSE