What’s wrong with women’s sports?

Just ten years ago, the siren’s song of summer was — almost unimaginably — women’s soccer. America, which loves a spectacle almost as much as it does a winner, fell in love with its women’s World Cup team, a “we-first” gang whose attitude represented an irresistible counterpoint to sports’ ego-saturated culture.

And when Brandi Chastain blasted the winning goal against China and, triumphantly, bared the black bra that became one of sports’ iconic images, it sealed the deal. Both men and women rejoiced. And young girls discovered a new kind of role model, women who were rather more muscular than the than those twiggy gals that dominated celebrity culture.

World Cup success propelled — perhaps a bit too hastily — a new women’s pro soccer league, WUSA, that would feature all the familiar faces — Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy, Kristine Lilly, Briana Scurry — off the U.S. championship team as well as the premier international players. But despite all the star power the league folded after only three seasons, piling up losses in excess of $100 million.

This week, a second women’s pro soccer league will complete its first regular season in virtual anonymity. Women’s Professional Soccer — even the name lacks luster — is a denizen of the rear guard of the sports pages where there is strictly agate type. You probably don’t know the players nor have a clue where the three teams battling for the final playoff spot — the Breakers, the Freedom and the Sky Blue — are based. (Boston, Washington and New York/New Jersey respectively.)

Launched in recession with no TV contract and no major sponsors, the league is a dramatic departure from the grand ambitions of just a few years ago. It is a bare-bones, minimum-pay operation where a team like the Breakers seem perfectly content, at least for the time being, to clump some 4,000-plus fans together in Harvard Stadium, with its capacity over 30,000.

Of course, it isn’t surprising that the distaff branch of a sport that lacks a significant history and culture in this country would struggle for survival. But soccer is proving to be an unhappy metaphor for the hopes and dreams of women’s pro sports across the board. Indeed almost all are struggling for survival.

The WNBA has lasted into to its second decade thanks only to a generous subsidy from the NBA. Women’s golf is shedding tournaments at a frightening pace — only about half of next year’s schedule have sponsorship deals locked in — and women’s tennis, once the starriest of women’s competitions, is increasingly a casualty of injury and burnout among its athletes. Even figure skating, where women were supreme, proved to be most popular when it briefly became a contact sport and mired in scandal.

Moreover, other sports that aspired to capitalize on Olympics successes, like women’s hockey and softball, have seen that dream turn into a pipedream. Softball is actually in worse shape than it was 10 years ago, having lost its Olympic showcase after it was unceremoniously tossed, almost as an afterthought along with baseball, from the Games. (Both softball and baseball are applying for reinstatement for the 2016 Games.)

Women’s pro soccer, with its modest ticket prices — $13 to $25 for the Breakers’ Sunday regular-season finale — and legions of youth players would seem well positioned for the recessionary economy. But hard economic times tend to prey on the weak. And women’s soccer remains among the most marginal of this nation’s pro sports enterprises. (The economy is hardly a one-gender problem in sports; the Arena Football League appears ready to officially fold this week.)

It isn’t entirely clear what kind of future the pioneers of Title IX envisioned for women’s sports. No doubt the landmark 1972 legislation has been instrumental in establishing the United States as the international pacesetter in the women’s games. But as women’s sports became an entrenched part of the American college culture and increasingly visible outside it, women athletes came to believe that there was the promise of a viable, professional future. Yet today, within sight of Title IX’s 4oth anniversary, its professional legacy remains uncertain.

While women’s sports boast an abundance of talent, they still lack a broad fan base. Too many male sports fans, still by far the dominant force in sports consumerism, regard women’s sports as a marginal entertainment. Perhaps even more of a problem, the sports spectator culture among women hasn’t kept pace with the participatory one.

Women don’t seem to embrace the “couch potato” traditions — and certainly not the label — as readily as male fans. And though women attend sporting events in increasing numbers, girls’ night out isn’t as likely to include a women’s soccer game or basketball game as boys’ night out is a baseball or basketball game (and perhaps a second late game on the pub TV afterwards).

While we’re hearing the first whispers of economic recovery on the horizon, there is no assurance that it will come soon enough or be sufficiently robust to provide a lifeline to this generation of women’s pro sports. And while that hardly constitutes tragedy, it should disappoint not just women, but anyone who truly loves sports.