Perspectives on the Demise of St. Louis Athletica
I am not going to stick my oar in on this one. But there are plenty of oars worth taking a look at as we consider the demise of Women’s Professional Soccer’s St. Louis Athletica, taking the bullet while their younger brother team AC St Louis continue in USSF D-II.
Or as Richard Farley puts it more starkly and angrily:
The needs of AC St. Louis have been prioritized such that the men’s club has been allowed to compromise the women’s. The amount of money they have paid for the likes of Steve Ralston, and Brazilians Gauchinho and Alex Titton would go a long way to running the Athletica for the year. They paid for Claude Anelka to come coach the team and hired former Manchester United Academy director Francisco Filho as their head of player development. And as St. Louis made each of these moves, they vaulted AC ahead of the club that deserved to be first in the pecking order.
But then we have the it’s-just-plain-old-economics theory, from Kenn Tomasch:
As for those who would ask, “Why would you get rid of the women’s team that’s cheaper to run than the men’s team?” I would say this: at this moment, they’re looking for investors to try to “secure the long-term future” of the entire enterprise. All you need to do is look at history and see how many people have, over time, invested in men’s pro outdoor soccer versus the number who have, over time, invested in women’s pro outdoor soccer. It may be that they felt they’d have a better shot finding a white knight to invest in AC St. Louis than in finding one for Athletica. There’s no question that a men’s outdoor team or league has a far greater upside (and, yes, a far greater expense, but I don’t think they’re looking at it that way, nor would they sell it that way to potential investors) than its distaff version.
The NASL (of which AC St. Louis is a part) is also in a battle with USL, one that will come to a head (again) over this winter when both sides try to get USSF sanctioning for second division play in 2011. All things considered, it’s very likely that the St. Louis and NASL folks felt that – for now at least – the men’s show must go on.
Fake Sigi is not buying that, offering instead the sexism theory (yes, I’m simplifying, giving you a good reason to go read the whole thing properly):
Dumping a women’s team with lower costs, similar attendance, a better record, and much better players IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SEASON, to save a men’s team that by all indications is bleeding cash, is undoubtedly a sexist action. And given MLS’s expansion strategy (ie, not to St. Louis) there is almost no basis in economic reality for the decision to shutter Atheletica over AC St. Louis. Kenn Tomasch and Wendy Parker want to pretend that sexism doesn’t exist, and it’s all about economics.
Which led to a retort from Kenn, and a comment from Wendy that “Women’s sports will never grow — and grow up — as long as its denizens instantly whip out the red card of sexism when something doesn’t go their way.”
In the bigger picture, Jeff Kassouf suggests letting Athletica die was the right call by WPS:
By no means am I trying to be the rah-rah, positive spin, delusional optimist. The loss of Saint Louis sucks. The fact that AC Saint Louis survives is salt to the wound, as there is clearly a precedent being given to the men’s team. Money does prevail and Jeff Cooper clearly sees much more value in his men’s team, but there is a clear problem with Athletica closing up shop and AC Saint Louis – a much less talented team relative to its competition and much less influential in it’s respective league (see: Shannon Boxx, Hope Solo, Eniola Aluko and other superstars) – sticking around. Then again, who knows how AC Saint Louis will last.
The bottom line is, fans should have been more concerned had the league stepped in and “saved” this team. The long-term (or really, somewhat short-term) effects of that could have been disastrous. Maybe one day down the road Saint Louis will return, similar to the way Los Angeles is expected (or hoped) to soon. For now, everyone needs to move on from the situation, which has a resolution that will not change. The key now is ensuring that the seven remaining markets are strong and viable and expansion is well thought out to ensure that only financially strong, committed owners enter the league.
Meanwhile, on Twitter, Grant Wahl wades in with a rare comment on WPS and everyone wonders why he’s suddenly paying attention now.
And elsewhere on Twitter. . .No-one can take your WPS away?
Let’s hope not.
The best part about the Fake Sigi piece is the critique/background investigation of the Vaid brothers and the supposed contract that Jeff Cooper signed! Even if you don’t buy the argument about the sexism the over arching question of Coopers ability/end desire is what is really important!
I don’t want to make this into a pissing match between myself and Fake Sigi, whose work I like and who (until this morning) I thought I had a mutual respect thing going with.
But let me ask this: If BOTH teams had folded yesterday, where would the argument be then? The fact that WPS (which had already covered Athletica’s last TWO team payrolls – never a good sign) opted not to collectively fund the team the rest of the year, but USSF (a separate entity, let us not forget) apparently has found or is close to finding a mechanism to fund ACSTL the rest of the way has nothing to do with sexism.
Was Cooper a bad businessman? Seems like. Does that make him a misogynist? I don’t think so. Some people are so blinded by their pain and hurt right now that they just want to lash out and curse the skies and flail around and say “Why did YOU take my team away when you could have taken THEIR team away instead? MY team was BETTER than their team and cheaper, too!”
And they don’t see the problem with that.
Until and unless someone (Cooper would be nice) comes out and said “Here’s why we decided it this way,” we’re left to speculate. My speculation is that the chances of finding an investor for ACSTL (being a men’s team in a men’s league) may have been better (and they appear to be – given what we’ve been told about there potentially being one) than finding one for Athletica.
And if the story in the Alton newspaper is correct, Cooper was legally and contractually PROHIBITED (don’t ask me why) from using his own money to fund Athletica. So, you tell me, exactly WHAT was he supposed to do in that situation? Continue to allow players to play unpaid? Convince airlines to take livestock in exchange for plane tickets? When there’s no money, there’s no money, right? The organization’s credit cards had been frozen. WHAT, EXACTLY, WAS COOPER SUPPOSED TO DO?
If ACSTL folds next week, what difference does it make in what order these teams went under? They’ll be gone.
Cooper apparently doesn’t have everything together – he (or the English investors, who knows?) hired a guy who had been a disaster at Wraith Rovers, for chrissakes, and who deliberately played the first 30 minutes of his club’s first game ever a man down because one of his players left his ID back at the hotel, and who said a 3-0 loss last weekend was their “best game ever.” Really?
My opinion – delivered dispassionately and with my own name on it – is that this was a financial deal. If others choose to play the sexism card (and I’m just talking about male journalists and bloggers – God help me if I would take a look at what female fans are saying today) and hide behind the shield of anonymity that the internet provides, that’s fine. I’m not going to slag them and say their opinion is crap. I just think the simplest theory – based on the facts we have currently in evidence – is the right one. You can agree, or disagree, as you see fit.
But don’t fucking try to tell me I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about.
Nice job centralizing all the thoughts on this. I struggled with this one too… but had to have the self-realization that until we have a robust US-pro-(mens)-soccer industry that I can count on for the long haul, I find it hard to care about WPS/WUSA comings and goings. We are barely making headway in the Men’s professional game, and to me this is all an uneeded distraction. I hate saying it, but it is (my) reality.
One of the curious angles here is that the women’s team began play before the men’s team in St. Louis. That’s the reverse of the situation we have seen in the past many, many times in England where women’s teams have been sacrificed when the club as a whole has run into financial trouble — the men’s team have been around a lot longer, and so it’s seen (fairly or not) that they have a historical “right” to survive even if it means cutting the few pennies spent on the women’s team as well. Even if the whole crisis only happened because the men’s team’s side started to lose a lot of money (such as because of relegation).
That’s one reason why many (as Richard Farley discusses) question whether it’s a good idea for two teams to share the same ownership with a men’s team at all; in WPS, we’ve seen two of the teams that do fold this year (do any others?). And it’s also why this culling has raised so many accusations of sexism, because it’s usually the team that came last that pays the price when the whole business runs into trouble. In this case, the younger team folded first.
That is all regardless, of course, of all the actual details, many of which – particularly on the involvement and efforts of the USSF to save both teams, on the real details of Cooper’s failures and on the roles played by the NASL & WPS – seem extremely scant still considering the conclusions being draw by everyone.
KT (despite your pride in being non-anonymous I have to infer you’re the Kenn Tomasch in the post, as you didn’t put your full name or link to your site),
I do disagree. It damn sure is sexism. Not necessarily Jeff Cooper’s personally. He may be the least sexist guy on the planet. I’m not happy with his apparent lack of business acumen lately, but hey, he did own one of the first teams in WPS, after all.
And everything you say, all the economic arguments, may well be completely right. But I contend that still boils down to sexism. Okay, it’s academic at that point, maybe. It’s a widespread, cultural thing, and not a specific misogyny that we can use to tar & feather one or two individuals. But that doesn’t mean it’s not sexism.
How about this thought experiment: reverse the teams’ sexes (& players). On the one hand, suppose we have a 2nd-year men’s team, built around 3 or 4 national-team starters. Let’s say: Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey, with Tim Howard in goal. Oh, and an English striker… I don’t know, how about Jermain Defoe, too.
On the other hand we have a brand new women’s team, with approximately *nobody* you’ve ever heard of aside from one has-been, ditched by her former club, who’s played exactly one game so far this season. This team, by the way, is in a division-2 league that was a whisker away from not even existing this year.
Now tell me that *that* men’s team gets shuttered, while *that* women’s team survives… and I’ll tell you that you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.
I just want to make clear that I am totally down with KT and I think he makes some good points here. I am a little surprised at how he’s reacted so harshly to what I said. I posted an apology on my site for both him *and* Wendy Parker in the text of my post for how dismissive I was of their arguments, and I admitted that I needed to write better on the sexism issue. I plan to write a more nuanced followup.
If Kenn wants to now go after me for being anonymous, that’s his prerogative, but I’ve tried very hard to listen to his criticism and make amends. For the record, this is what I said in the first place:
“Kenn Tomasch and Wendy Parker want to pretend that sexism doesn’t exist, and it’s all about economics. Sorry. You’re both wrong.”
I didn’t think it was all that incendiary, as I’m not going to agree with everyone all the time. Apparently I touched some kind of button and I’m sorry. How many ways to you want me to say I made a mistake, Kenn?
Again, I don’t want to hijack the comment thread here. My e-mail is on my website if you want to take it off-net.
-FS
For the record, Sigi and I have kissed and made up. It’s all good.
And, Chris, you can’t simply reverse the situations of the respective teams and have an apples to apples comparison. WE know that Hope Solo and Lori Chalupny, et al, are outstanding players. But in the soccer hierarchy, they’re still WOMEN’S soccer players. And, like it or not, except for a few weeks in the summer and fall of 1999, they’re simply lower on the totem pole. You can call that sexist, and there’s something to that, but that’s our society. Our society is a male-centric one, and has been for hundreds of years.
But it’s ridiculously easy to just yell “Sexism!” or “Racism”! or “The ref is on the take!” or any of the myriad of other things that people say in emotional response rather than rational response.
And if it’s not Jeff Cooper’s sexism, whose is it? Society’s at large? Is it society’s sexism that keeps women making less than men for the same work, that has women objectified, that shits on working mothers and, generally, keeps women and women’s sports secondary to men and men’s sports?
Well, no shit. Everything can come back to that argument, then, doesn’t it? Lingerie Football, Maxim Magazine, Erin Andrews, all of it.
But that’s not what killed Athletica, in the end. There are women’s sports teams (and, let’s be honest, seven other pro women’s soccer teams) who are operating in the same environment and who are still alive. To make the knee-jerk, easy “it’s sexism! I can’t tell you WHOSE sexism, but it makes a great bumper sticker!” is the wrong way to go, in my opinion.
I won’t print bumper stickers, but that is exactly the point I wanted to make. I *can* tell you whose sexism: everyone’s. You said exactly yourself, “But in the soccer hierarchy, they’re still WOMEN’S soccer players. And, like it or not, except for a few weeks in the summer and fall of 1999, they’re simply lower on the totem pole.”
Something being lower on the totem pole solely because of the sex of those involved is, by definition, sexism.
Sure it’s society at large. Sure it’s “no shit.” But maybe that makes it *more* worth talking about, rather than less.
Anyway, I feel like we’re agreeing more than disagreeing here. I was an Athletica fan, and am still an American soccer fan, and from both of those viewpoints I’m angry. The whole situation just sucks to the hilt. I appreciate the dialog, and the chance to vent. Now back to supporting my teams and hoping WPS (and USSF-D2 for that matter) comes out of all this just as strong, or stronger. Cheers.
So, let me make sure I’m following you here….
We’ve established that Jeff Cooper’s not sexist. Unless they’re the best double agents ever, WPS isn’t sexist. I don’t know about the Viad brothers.
So your problem is with “society at large?” Well, great, but who, exactly are you going to take that up with? Everybody? Is America a sexist nation? Yeah. It’s also a racist nation, a narcissistic nation, a lardass nation and a lot of other things. So if you’re going to rail against “the way things are” and not against an individual or a league, I guess I can give you that, but then you’re saying “It’s really a lot harder for a woman to make it than a man.”
And, again, no shit. Everybody involved in WPS already knows that, and knew it going in.
Look, I’m a Caucasian male of European descent. “My people” have had the run of the place for the first 400 years. That’s just the way it is. If you want to blame a “climate of sexism,” then, fine. But that hasn’t killed the other seven WPS (not yet, anyway). The death of Athletica was, at the end of the day, due to economic factors. They were out of money. Just like the California Victory and the Syracuse Salty Dogs and the Edmonton Aviators and a boatload of other men’s teams.
To continue that thought….do you REALLY think a team with Landon Donovan, Clint Dempsey, Tim Howard and Jermain Defoe on it would be INCAPABLE of finding an investor? Today? I wouldn’t know what to say to that except that I disagree, respectfully. Somebody bought the Kansas City Fucking Wizards.
And no matter how many times you say it…Hope Solo’s not Tim Howard. Shannon Boxx ain’t Clint Dempsey. Lori Chalupny ain’t Landon Donovan and Eniola Aluko ain’t Jermaine Defoe. I could be the Slawomir Szmal of American team handball, and it wouldn’t matter because NOBODY GIVES A FUCK ABOUT TEAM HANDBALL IN AMERICA. Sheryl Swoopes (who I love, by the way), was “the female Michael Jordan.” How’d that work out for her? Did you see a lot of Hanes Her Way commercials with Sheryl Swoopes in them?
You know how I know Hope Solo’s not Tim Howard. Shannon Boxx ain’t Clint Dempsey. Lori Chalupny ain’t Landon Donovan and Eniola Aluko ain’t Jermaine Defoe? Because a team with Tim Howard, Clint Dempsey, Landon Donovan and Jermaine Defoe on it WOULDN’T HAVE DRAWN 3,600 PEOPLE A GAME OVER THE COURSE OF ITS EXISTENCE OR 24 PERCENT LESS THAN THE REST OF THE TEAMS IN ITS LEAGUE.
And as for not letting the better team die, no one would ever let a team die that had the league’s top two goalscorers, its third-best goalkeeper, 8 All-Stars, the league MVP, five of the league’s Best XI players and made the playoffs, would they? Oh, wait they did that in 2002.
And no one would fold a women’s soccer league on the eve of the US hosting a Women’s World Cup, would they? Oh, wait, they did that in 2003.
Business is business. As Hope Solo alluded to, this whole thing is much more complicated than any of us are really capable of knowing. But – outside of a climate that everybody knows going in is stacked against women – no one involved in this scenario acted in a sexist manner. Not every Arizonan hates Mexicans, not every German was a Nazi, not every Republican is an idiot, not every Democrat is a wimp and not everybody who has to fold a women’s soccer team does it because of sexism. Especially not this one.
People ask why I am the way I am? Because people make facile arguments based on emotion and not reality.
And I would also add that this notion, that “Something being lower on the totem pole solely because of the sex of those involved is, by definition, sexism” doesn’t apply here, either.
Because the relative lack of popularity of women’s soccer is not “solely because of the sex of those involved.” It’s not the same game. All things are not equal. The WNBA is not the same game. If women played both sports exactly as well and in the same manner that men played (a physiological impossibility, I think we can stipulate), and THEN were a fourth as popular and the only argument you could make was “I don’t think women should be playing sports,” THAT’S sexist. But to say “It’s not the same game, it’s not as appealing to as many people” isn’t sexism – that’s true. It’s NOT the same game. It DOESN’T have the same appeal.
Negro League baseball had some AMAZING players in it. They were completely denied access to the white majors SOLELY because of the color of their skin. No other reason. THAT’S an ism.
I have absolutely no problem with women’s sports. I worked for a W-League team, I have a daughter who played sports, all of that. But let’s be honest, here – you’re making an apples-to-apples comparison where there is none to be made.
tell the girls and their mothers they should be filling up the st. louis stadium…
the bottom line is – read this twice without passion and for common sense – women’s pro soccer is really struggling here…attendance is poor…interest beyond a few thousand per city — is low…facts.
the game may e more pure in form due to slower pace and less turnovers , but the game is not interesting to watch…
Wow, you weren’t done yet, were you? Well, okay.
Don’t act like Athletica just ran out of money and suddenly, dramatically folded up in the middle of the season because their attendance was lower than the WPS league average. It’s *not* just like the California Victory (they finished their season for one thing), or anyone else. If Cooper hadn’t overreached with AC St. Louis, and then somewhat mysteriously let the whole enterprise run itself into the ground without alerting anyone in either league to the looming financial crisis, then Athletica would still be playing in Atlanta this weekend and we wouldn’t be having this little pissing match. Maybe they’d survive, and thrive, and WPS would have gone on to be a rock-solid league that pulls in lots of fans and gets attention from Grant Wahl and Jamie Trecker for something besides a team collapsing.
Hopefully WPS will still do that. But Athletica will not have that chance now, and a women’s pro team in that market may never have that chance. Their chance was cashed out. Despite being superstars — yes, only superstars in their 2nd-rate segregated ghetto sport of WOMEN’S soccer, but still — their chance has been cashed out. For what? So that a very lackluster men’s team gets their shot.
If anyone’s comparable to the California Victory, or the rest of the long parade of USL-1 flops, for that matter, surely it’s AC St. Louis more than Athletica. AC is yet another long-shot first-year team in a league that couldn’t market itself out of a wet paper bag. A roster that’s about as close to anonymous to most soccer fans (let alone sports fans in general) as you can get. And an owner who may be breaking the 2nd division record in flaming out financially, which is saying something.
And I disagree with you about the comparison of play quality. I’m sure I’ll open myself up to criticism and scoffing from all the true, old-school, sophisticated and tough fans, but I like the women’s game just fine. Hell, sometimes I like it *better*. I don’t mind at all watching people who tend to actually play the ball, instead of seeing how many fouls they can get away with.
You and I clearly have different ideas of what sexism is, and at what level it’s worth trying to call it out. You say, “outside of a climate that everybody knows going in is stacked against women – no one involved in this scenario acted in a sexist manner”. That just makes my head spin. “Outside of all the sugar I poured in that tea – no one involved thought it was too sweet.” Huh? “Outside of all the punching, kicking and stabbing – no one involved thought it was too violent.” What?
Yeah, yeah. Okay, I get it. You want the sexism factored out. You want us to say up front: “okay, some seriously sexist shit is going to happen in this venture, just so we all know that” and be done forever with that uncomfortable topic. And when you’re right, and some seriously sexist shit happens, then what? We can’t point out, hey that was sexist? Hey, that sucked, and if we had a team of dudes, we wouldn’t be talking about this at all right now, because we’d be getting ready for a game against NSC Minnesota in front of about 1,000 fans if they’re lucky?
Okay, fine. You’re excused. Jeff Cooper and the Vaid brothers and all of society, past present and future, is excused. The treatment these women got was no more or less than they should have expected. Because, please, after all, they’re just girls. Little girls who are lucky that the men in charge even gave them a chance. Whatever they do, today, tomorrow, and forever, is basically like handball, in that NOBODY GIVES A FUCK.
Say hi to your daughter for me, after you finish explaining that to her. And don’t forget to mention that business is business. That’s what it all comes down to. No matter what, it all comes down to that.
Not gonna stick my boot in on the debate going on, I know too little about WPS and I’ll be promptly dispatched. I’ll offer my opinion though.
I don’t think Cooper is a sexist. He did make a large investment in women’s and girl’s soccer with the Athletica to begin with. He’s not a good businessman, but he’s not a sexist. I think he genuinely believes there’s more upside to ACSTL, and I think he’s wrong, but I think his intentions are purely based on potential profit and not sex. I don’t think AC will make it to 2011, and if I’ve heard right, the league is preparing for that scenario by courting investors in San Antonio.
If it is true that he was prohibited from keeping Athletica afloat with his own cash then something is seriously fucked with that contract..
While everyone is patting Garber on the back for staying away from Cooper, lost in this has been Nike avoiding him. Remember, this man bid for the USL last year, Nike must’ve done one hell of a snooping job here.