What's wrong with women's sports?

United States midfielder Brandi Chastain celebrates her winning penalty kick to defeat China 5-4 at the Women's World Cup soccer final between the two countries July 10, 1999. The United States women's national soccer team were named Sportswomen of the Year (1999) by Sports Illustrated magazine. (FP/FMS/AA/Reuters)

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.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/sports/090804/whats-wrong-womens-sports