Something that’s been on my mind…

By: Melissa | July 3rd, 2008

Ok, so this Designated Player thing. I have to admit I really like all those blogs and I’ve been subscribed to their rss feeds for a while now, but I don’t see the benefit to them “branding” themselves at all. I can’t shake the sense that the whole build up and unveiling is nothing more than a self-promotion tool and less to do with emphasizing “quality blogs” (a phrase mentioned a few times over at The Offside Rules) that write about soccer. Since… isn’t the point of blogging that anyone can get a site and start posting? I would hope that the DP deal has more to do with helping build overall quality (since most writing about soccer in this country occurs on the internet) rather than distinguishing a handful of sites and declaring them better than everyone else.

Moving on. To all of us Bay Area residents, sometimes commenter on this site and Red Stars new hire, Amanda Vandervort, clued us in on her blog that a guy named Scott Kucirek is working really really hard to bring a WPS team to the Bay Area. Hooray! He’s documenting his experiences and generally writing about the sport over at Norcal Women’s Soccer. Bookmark that site and/or add it to your reader like yesterday.

And if you are lucky enough to live in Seattle or Chicago, then there are some upcoming events you might consider checking out. The Women’s Open Cup Semi Finals and Amateur Cup finals will be in Seattle August 7-10 (good luck to FC Indiana) and the Chicago Red Stars are hosting USA v Brazil viewing parties coming up July 13th and 16th. Hats off to the Red Stars for yet another fantastic marketing idea.

So Jen Striker at Women’s Soccer USA asks if WPS is in trouble. She, I think, quotes someone else (but did not post a source!) who wonders why there is no movement from Los Angeles, Dallas and St. Louis. I’ve been pondering that myself. But, it does seem WPS is still pushing forward. Over at their blog, they recently kept the rest of us updated on their next steps: the upcoming allocation draft. They are currently hashing out the rules and figuring out possible media coverage. And it looks like they are also sorting out television coverage for the actual games as well as online media outlets. If it’s possible to throw my two cents in, I would LOVE it if there was a subscription service available allowing me access to the games online – preferably live (and possibly archived as well). Oh and give us highlight videos we can embed on our own sites. That would be so fetch.