Daily News - WUSA suspends operations, citing lack of sponsorship

Inquirer - After three seasons, WUSA goes under

I'm incredibly bummed right now, but not at all surprised. I just hope all of the players, coaches and all others involved are able to move on to the next chapter of their lives without much difficulty.

Thanks for the three great years, ladies.

This sucks. I guess people like me are to blame. Always planned to go, never made it.

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Jason
Lynn Swann 06'

"Individualism is absent when other peoples' standards, not reality and reason, are ones primary guide."

sometimes being the trailblazer doesn't lead to the success you'd hoped for. but i think they should they should all take solace in the fact they started a league (hard enough!) and made it work in a country not so friendly to pro soccer.

out of curiousity- how is the MLS doing?

i'm not a soccer fan, but i still don't understand how so many people can play it in this country but can't watch it when they grow up. it's kind of like my sport of choice, lacrosse - but that has more to do with the fact we lax players get confused when we retire... we always want to run on to the field with the players and drink one more beer... er i mean score one more goal...

-g

MLS is doing alright. There are not any immediate concerns of the league following the WUSA's fate, as far as I can tell.

As for why having so many people playing the sport not translating into people watching the sport, I heard a good theory on NPR yesterday. So many of the kids that play soccer play on more than one team, which may cause a bit of burn out.

For example, some of the girls on the U-12 team I help coach play on my team, which is a rec league, plus play on a travel team. So, they have practice three times a week, plus at least two games, both of which are on Saturdays. For 10 and 11 year olds, that's a lot of soccer. It's not hard to understand that when they're not playing, a lot don't want to have anything to do with soccer in their off time.

Another possible reason the WUSA didn't succeed is the reason it was formed. I've heard some theories that the cable companies that backed most of the teams simply saw the league as television programming. When the ratings were much lower than anticipated, the cable companies decided to cut their losses. Again, just a theory I've heard.

This is truly sad as we are losing the opportunity to watch some truly gifted athelets in one of the few sports where people could not easily see a difference in the level of play from the league's nale counterpart.

Well, with the loss of the U.S. Women's team to Germany last weekend, many who follow the sport believe that was the final nail in the WUSA coffin.

There were hopes that investors would be eager to resurrect the league following a U.S. victory in the Women's World Cup. However, that no longer seems likely.

So, that appears to be that.

It's a shame that soccer is just not taking off in the US. There are some talented players, both male and female. The best male players all move to Europe as soon as they get the chance. The US National teams have both done well in their respective World Cups, losing to Germany is no disgrace, England have been great at this for years.

Of course without plenty of "time outs" to allow the players to ask the coach what to do next, the game is not attractive to TV stations. No timeouts = no advertising.

Womens sports seems to always be struggling for money. I've personally never watched a womens match of any kind, apart from a couple of World Cup games the time the US won. I've never had the slightest inerest in MLS either, as much as I like the game. Now, Premiership Football - that's another matter!

“KEEP THE WUSA DREAM ALIVE” Multi-Year Ticket Initiative is Unveiled - http://www.wusa.com/press_room/408883.html

Hopefully this helps the return of the league.

Now this is something that I can and will gladly support!

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Steve Johnston
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