« Joyous Shock of Recognition | Main | Almost Famous »

Women's Soccer: Strangely, My Heart Won't Bleed

OK, full disclosure: I really don't like soccer, or 'football' as I'm in the habit of calling it. I find it an incredibly tedious game with (at least in England) magnificently uncivil supporters. It is a sport which is spreading like an epidemic: I remember the J-League starting in Japan, and for a while, it seemed to be making headway over here.

So it's not surprising that I started out unsympathetic when I read Lissa Muscatine's Sports Heroes, Corporate Orphans (washingtonpost.com), an op-ed piece today slating Nike and other corporations for having allowed the Women's United Soccer Association to die an (at least by me) unlamented death. But Muscatine is a White House speechwriter, so I figured I'd give her a shot. [1]

Bring back Peggy Noonan. At least she knew words had some meaning. For instance:

As a group, the women soccer players were hardworking, civic-minded and so devoted to their league that they took a pay cut to help it survive. In short, they were great role models. But they weren't the sports heroes in whom most corporations were willing to invest.

Every Saturday my daughter and her teammates will don their Nike uniforms ($70) and carry their Nike bags ($35) to their weekly soccer game. And I'll watch from the sidelines, wondering why so many hugely profitable companies haven't done more to help millions of girls hold on to their dreams of playing soccer in the pros.


Noonan never made the mistake of answering the question in paragraph two in her own paragraph one. Why not do more? Check that word: invest.

The WUSA didn't make money. Neither did the (also late and unlamented) XFL. Nike's 'investment' in was likely never to be recouped, and so it didn't make one. [2] Nike's $90 million deal with LeBron James, also mentioned in the article, will strengthen the sports-shoe company brand by much more than the asking price, while it could have sponsored the whole WUSA for the next decade and barely been noticed.

Nike didn't become the behemoth it is by acting as a charitable sponsor for sports. When it gives money, it invests. Of course, 'investment' as a term used by Hillary Clinton or her speechwriters always did have an odd tinge, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised.

Nor should Muscatine have been surprised at the death of the WUSA, if this is the best she can muster in its defense:

More than 200,000 kids play soccer in the Washington region, and millions of girls play nationwide. Parents who watch their kids' games increasingly embrace soccer's elegance and fluidity, not to mention its lack of violence. Soccer moms are even part of our national political lexicon.

Ignore the fact that the USA and Japan are perhaps the only two countries in the world where soccer is known for a 'lack of violence,' albeit not on the field. Note that in wondering whether Nike would be better off putting its money in a single male basketball player or in an entire women's league, she gives solid numbers as to what would be required in money, but makes no attempt to quantify the returns: there are 'millions' of girls who play soccer nationwide, but how many, and how many in comparison to players (or spectators) of basketball?

And yes, 'soccer moms' have entered our political lexicon: as the kind of wishy-washy swing voters who are unattached to ideology and worried mostly with outcomes. These are hardly the kind of people to whom one ascribes the passionate, irrational commitments familiar to Cheeseheads, Wolverines, or other intense (and, in brand-building terms, valuable) sports fans. "Soccer mom" is at best a neutral moniker, and in some cases a pejorative term.

Ms. Muscatine should learn to live like the rest of us fringe-sport fans. I like sumo wrestling, and I'd love to see it get more attention in the United States. I'd love to be able to watch it (with the proper Japanese commentary) without having to pay the exorbitant cable charges it would take to get the right package. But unlike Ms. Muscatine, I'm resigned to the fact that Nike will probably never fulfill my dream, because it is a practical company with a concern for its brand. Even assuming I gathered together 'millions' of passionate fans, a sumo wrestler's outfit provides few places for Nike to add a sponsorship logo.


[1] At this point, I'd not realized she was a speechwriter for Hillary Clinton. [2] Actually, it did: it outfitted a few of the teams. But it didn't provide funds on the level Ms. Muscatine found desirable.

Comments

Opinon Journal ran this piece making pretty much the same point last week
Spot on analysis. Why---except for charity---would any company pour money into an obviously failing venture? Making little girls feel happy is all well and good, but not why one runs a business. Now if only the WNBA would follow...

Post a comment

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)

NOTICE TO SPAMMERS, COMMENT ROBOTS, TRACKBACK SPAMMERS AND OTHER NON-HUMAN VISITORS: No comment or trackback left via a robot is ever welcome at Three Years of Hell. Your interference imposes significant costs upon me and my legitimate users. The owner, user or affiliate who advertises using non-human visitors and leaves a comment or trackback on this site therefore agrees to the following: (a) they will pay fifty cents (US$0.50) to Anthony Rickey (hereinafter, the "Host") for every spam trackback or comment processed through any blogs hosted on threeyearsofhell.com, morgrave.com or housevirgo.com, irrespective of whether that comment or trackback is actually posted on the publicly-accessible site, such fees to cover Host's costs of hosting and bandwidth, time in tending to your comment or trackback and costs of enforcement; (b) if such comment or trackback is published on the publicly-accessible site, an additional fee of one dollar (US$1.00) per day per URL included in the comment or trackback for every day the comment or trackback remains publicly available, such fee to represent the value of publicity and search-engine placement advantages.

Giving The Devil His Due

And like that... he is gone (8)
Bateleur wrote: I tip my hat to you - not only for ... [more]

Law Firm Technology (5)
Len Cleavelin wrote: I find it extremely difficult to be... [more]

Post Exam Rant (9)
Tony the Pony wrote: Humbug. Allowing computers already... [more]

Symbols, Shame, and A Number of Reasons that Billy Idol is Wrong (11)
Adam wrote: Well, here's a spin on the theory o... [more]

I've Always Wanted to Say This: What Do You Want? (14)
gcr wrote: a nice cozy victorian in west phill... [more]

Choose Stylesheet

What I'm Reading

cover
D.C. Noir

My city. But darker.
cover
A Clockwork Orange

About time I read this...


Shopping

Projects I've Been Involved With

A Round-the-World Travel Blog: Devil May Care (A new round-the-world travel blog, co-written with my wife)
Parents for Inclusive Education (From my Clinic)

Syndicated from other sites

The Columbia Continuum
Other Blogs by CLS students