Female sports and soccer. That's like combining the Detroit Lions with the Arizona Cardinals. They're both perennial losers.
First, soccer. What has men's soccer done in this country? Virtually nothing. Soccer is pretty hot in countries that don't have hockey, football, baseball, and basketball (all North American inventions), but let's face it: all four of those sports offer far more excitement and/or cerebral joys than soccer. Yet we keep pushing soccer. How many men's professional leagues have tanked so far? A few, even though they had no competition, and the current "powerhouse," the MLS, lost $350 million from 1996 to 2004. But hope springs eternal (my Dad says, "Soccer is the sport of the future and always will be"). The pundits say soccer will make it this time. And, quite frankly, it should. In this day of cable and sports saturation, any activity--from poker to billiards to paint balling--can get viewers.
And women's sports. Sigh. I can feel the hate mail heating up already. I think it's great that women--especially girls--can play real sports. But girls aren't boys, and women aren't men, and sports are primarily a male activity. Until that fundamental truth is recognized, there will always be a warped approach to female sports, as evidenced by efforts to take healthy female sporting activities, and turn them into powerhouse activities like the NFL, NBA, etc.
The problem is, people don't want to watch female sports. There's something unseemly about a woman acting like a man, though at times it's refreshingly comical (female boxing). The major sports attract viewers because it's men being men at high levels of competition. The same viewers don't want to see women being men at high levels of competition (plus, the competition is never as high, due to anatomical differences). And without viewers, these enterprises will fail.
None of this, incidentally, is an attack on female sports in general. My 11-year-old daughter plays soccer, and I like it (subject to head-butting the ball, which I believe is a highly dangerous activity). It gets her running and competing and understanding winning/losing with dignity. If she wants to play tennis, golf, basketball, track, or any other sport, that'd be great. But that doesn't mean the rest of the nation should want to watch her . . . now or in ten years.
