Have you ever thought to yourself, I’d really like to watch Heather Mitts and Sue Weber try on wedding dresses while listening to delightful sounds from the Fergie solo album

By: Melissa | June 11th, 2009

Well, lucky lucky you because the Boston Breakers have that video on their site right now. Admittedly nowhere near as great as Will Ferrell and MC Hammer on Regis and Kelly (<- seriously, click that link then afterwards enjoy part two). And I’m not just writing that cause I live in Oakland and MC Hammer is from here.

But moving on… Hello and welcome to mid-season! Now is the time for the smart people paying attention to reflect and review the first ten weeks and even the drafts. So far, the league is averaging around 5,400 fans per match (but I think that count may be a bit high) and the number of people watching the WPS games on FSC is about the same as the those watching the FSC MLS games. And hey! WPS is now streaming those FSC games on their website. And after Chicago put their non-FSC games online and now LA appears to be following suit — next up is for the league to keep online archives for fans to stream on-demand. I’m not saying they will do that, I’m merely suggesting that they should.

But the inaugural season so far is not without it’s criticisms. John Howell at the Bleacher Report thinks each team needs a psychologist because these top-flight players are so used to winning, they can’t figure out how to come back from falling behind (but I think there were at least two Washington games to prove his theory wrong and I’m not entirely sure if this guy is really just asking for a job). And Commish Tonya, speaking at the Association for Women in Sports Media convention, said the way WPS is built almost “takes gender out of the equation in what our brand stands for” – meaning the league signed top players and will not use sex appeal to sell tickets. According to Antonucci, MLS is busy competing with the “other football” and soccer is already a popular sport for girls to play, so it’s natural for players to turn into fans as they get older. The Sports, Media, & Society blog argues this idea won’t work:

Popular spectator sports in western culture have always been all about gender performance. In other words, gender can’t be removed from any sports equation. That’s one reason (among several) that soccer will struggle in the U.S. to ever have a sustained, high-numbers following — it’s a gender-neutral sport, and, thus, is less appealing to fans (logically, this quality gives it more appeal as a participatory sport.)

Although, I don’t know if I can agree with the argument about the popularity of soccer in general since I’m pretty sure western culture includes Europe… but the Commish is quoted further In Jim Slater’s article “US women’s soccer league builds for success,” he writes:

WPS is cultivating attendance, attention and sponsorship slowly and in markets, wanting to build lasting partnerships as a sport league and avoid sympathy ploys as a women’s league fighting for attention against male rivals.

“This isn’t about making people feel guilted into helping our sport,” said Antonucci. “We’re going to earn it.”

…which brings me to the point here that WPS may be positioning itself as the gender-neutral gendered sports league yet I wonder how it is going to appeal to the the worldwide, both male and female, soccer fan (since it wants to be the top league in the world – right?) while at the same time aligning itself with the teeny tiny handful of women’s professional sports leagues we’ve got right now. Seems to me, in order to do both, one can’t ignore gender at all. Thoughts?

(Consider this blog an incomplete rant so please add any ideas/opinions you’ve got)