The decision by Women’s Professional Soccer to suspend operations for 2012 can be traced to the league’s failure to form a centralized, long-term business plan, says one former WPS team executive.
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Abby Wambach (left) is among the high-profile players without a pro team to play for this year.
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The WPS board of governors voted last week to kill the season, in part because of the costs tied to the league’s legal battles with Dan Borislow, the owner of the magicJack team in south Florida, said Jennifer O’Sullivan, the league’s CEO.
The plan is to resurrect a five-team league in 2013 without magicJack, O’Sullivan said. WPS kicked magicJack out of the league in October after accusing Borislow of repeated rules violations connected to the league’s business operations.
Borislow’s two lawsuits filed against the WPS over the league’s decision are a microcosm of a bigger problem with WPS, said Mark Washo, former president and general manager of the Washington Freedom.
Since the league was formed in 2007 and began play in 2009, the inability of team owners to agree on such basic principles as player salaries, sponsorships, front-office staff and travel expenses prevented WPS from growing its product, Washo said.
Washo worked for the Freedom from March 2009 to January 2011 and led the search for a new owner to buy the team from John and Maureen Hendricks. Borislow bought the Freedom in December 2010 and moved the team to Boca Raton, Fla., where it became magicJack, named after the telephone service Borislow owns.
MagicJack played its games at Florida Atlantic University. According to court documents, the league several times notified Borislow that he had violated WPS operating standards, violations that included a failure to display sponsor signs at magicJack’s home stadium and the coaching staff’s failure to wear required apparel supplied by Puma, the league’s official apparel partner. Borislow maintains he has not violated the rules.
But even before Borislow entered the league, during Washo’s tenure in Washington, Washo said, owners were rarely on the same page regarding league operations.
As a result, WPS as a whole could not organize a long-term strategy to move past the inevitable financial struggles a fledgling pro league experiences.
“When I was involved, in terms of the decision making, a lot of times when there were differences of opinion, they were left to linger and fester, which made it even more challenging,” Washo said.
The internal strife inevitably hurt external operations such as ticket sales and public relations, he said.
WPS officials remain hopeful they can survive the latest setback, O’Sullivan said.
On the business side, when WPS suspended operations, it had sponsorships in place with Citigroup, Fox Soccer, the Coast Guard and Sahlen’s hot dogs, a regional brand in New York that holds naming rights to the home stadium of the Western New York Flash. The Sahlen family owns the Flash.
Puma ended its relationship with WPS after the troubles with magicJack, but the league was in “final discussions” with another apparel company before last week’s decision, O’Sullivan said.
In addition to Western New York, four WPS teams remain intact: the Atlanta Beat, Boston Breakers, Philadelphia Independence and New Jersey’s Sky Blue FC.
“I can’t tell you how difficult this decision was for all of us,” said T. Fitz Johnson, Atlanta’s owner and CEO.
