Half-assed preview otherwise known as pre-season round-up

By: Melissa | March 6th, 2009

I’m at home today anxiously waiting for the UPS guy to show up with the $200 netbook I just bought on super-sale. Woo Hoo!. I’m also searching the internets for video of Marta on Ellen. So far, not coming up with anything. In the meantime, I bring you this place holder where the video should go:

The picture above is brought to you by the excellent site LOL Jocks. And I also recommend Ladies… because it’s pretty awesome to find a blog of only women writing about sports (sorry Euro readers – for now Ladies… just writes about games in the US). And I’m also pretty bummed out because I missed what is now kind of sort of maybe being called the game of the year when Montreal played Santos last night in the CONCACAF Chamions League. Personal complaints aside, I shall now attempt to do a WPS pre-season write-up so far which will likely look more half-assed than polished.

Perhaps the biggest news from last month was Arsenal winning their 10th Premiere League Cup courtesy of a Kelly Smith hat trick. And now, both England and Canada are playing in the Cyprus Cup so our English and Canadian internationals haven’t started their WPS pre-season yet. Same for the USWNT who are currently kicking massive ass at the Algarve Cup (they’ve won an automatic spot in the final). As for all the WPS internationals, Michael Minnich does a nice, concise review on his blog. His big question marks are Sky Blue FC (too many internationals, not enough slots) and The Washington Freedom (injured McLeod, questions whether Necib and Mykjaland will sign). And as for St Louis he writes: “Aluko’s first name isn’t even spelled correctly on the roster page. Not the best way to sell tickets and endear yourself to fans.” It’s true, I don’t really hear much from St Louis. Is that just because I live in California?

Domestically, the big story is the agreement reached between WPS and the USWNT players. The results place the average league salary at $32,000 with (I think) the USWNT players making around $40,000. Yeah, it’s low but considering that last time I checked the MLS salary structure (a starting MLS salary for a senior spot was around $30,000), I’m not particularly surprised at the numbers. Also the WPS salary cap is about half of what MLS teams get to work with. Although, it’s pretty obvious whatever Marta, Smith, Christiane, (likely) DeVanna, etc etc make will be much higher than the average leading me to wonder if each team is quietly being allowed one marquee (i.e. not part of the salary cap) player. Speaking of money, the other big story is whether the league will make it at all since WPS failed to land another major sponsorship after Puma and ticket sales are still a little low. But the hope is the league planned well for conservative spending. Goff writes:

Players will earn an average of $32,000 on six-month contracts instead of the full-year pacts used in the WUSA. To supplement earnings during the offseason, players will be loaned to clubs overseas, coach youth teams aligned with WPS or work non-soccer jobs identified for them by team officials.

And this conservative model means less dependence on ticket sales to stay viable. The goal being an average of 5,000 tickets sold per game which, you know, is a bit easier that 10,000 or 15,000.

So each team opened up their pre-season training camps and a few even released videos. And hold up – is that Abby Wambach to the left in that picture below taken at a recent Freedom training?

I really wish the The Offside had bloggers for each team RIGHT NOW to keep up with all the reports coming out of the different camps. This is too much for one girl to handle.

Ok, and one last bit on Skortgate 2009. By now, we all know those things are accessories only (although I really held back on announcing they’re convenient places to stash your weed) but it’s still worth it to read Jennifer Doyle’s take on the controversy at her blog. And after that, read Amanda Vandervort’s arguments for the sko– err wraps. And I just gotta say, both blogs have some pretty good points. But no matter what, I’m still calling them skorts.