By Jordan Kobritz
Six days before the Super Bowl, a celebration of America’s most popular sport, the Women’s Professional Soccer League (WPS) announced it was suspending operations for the 2012 season. Fittingly, the announcement hardly registered among sports fans. During the 2011 season, the league operated with only six teams and the total announced attendance was a mere 190,000.
WPS was the second incarnation of women’s professional soccer in the U.S. The Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA), whose inaugural season was 2001, had a tumultuous three-year run and lost upwards of $100 million before it, too, folded.
Jennifer O’Sullivan, CEO of WPS, blamed the league’s suspension on an ongoing legal dispute with Dan Borislow, former owner of the league’s South Florida magicJacks located in Boca Raton. Borislow sued the league last year after it suspended his franchise for “failing to meet league standards” and “unprofessional and disparaging treatment of his players (and failing) to pay his bills.”
A rarity among WPS team owners, Borislow appears to be well funded. The number of lawyers involved in his lawsuit against the league approaches the team’s turnstile numbers from last year’s games. Earlier this year, Borislow and the league entered into a verbal agreement to resolve the lawsuit which would have allowed the magicJacks to play “exhibition” games against WPS teams for the next two years. That arrangement required the approval of the U.S. Soccer Federation (USSF), which refused to grant its consent because Borislow had more than four women’s national team players on his team.
There have been a number of motions and legal maneuverings in the case, the latest being a motion for summary judgment filed by WPS in late February. The court has yet to rule on the league’s motion (see Freedom Soccer, LLC and Magictalk Soccer Club, LLC, Plaintiffs vs. Women’s Soccer, LLC, Defendant, Case No. 50 2011 CA 018214 AI, Circuit Court of the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit in and for Palm Beach County, Florida).
While the lawsuit is real, it was merely a convenient excuse to avoid the truth. The league, which has had 11 different franchises in its three-year existence, none of which have turned a profit, expected to operate with only five franchises this season. Welcome to the world of women’s professional sports.
The only women’s professional sports league to experience even a modicum of success is the WNBA, which was founded in 1997. Despite the league’s 15-year run, financial success remains elusive. The WNBA has survived courtesy of the deep pockets of the NBA, which funded the league almost exclusively for the first 10 years of its existence. When the NBA got tired of losing money on women’s basketball, it decided to sell franchises to individual owners. That act of generosity merely gave others the privilege of losing money through ownership of a professional sports franchise.
So why haven’t women’s professional sports leagues been successful in this country? Among the reasons suggested are the women’s game in each sport is different than the men’s, which is code for not as good; the so-called lesbian factor; more men than women watch sports and they don’t want to watch women compete; marketers sell sex rather than talent, and men don’t have to watch women play sports to see sex.
When people, especially females, lament the failure of women’s professional sports leagues, they invariably mention the loss of role models for young women. That may be true. However, professional sports are first and foremost a business. Making a profit, not serving as a role model, is the number one goal. In fact, what seems to be lost in the discussion is financial success is a prerequisite for professional athletes to provide role models for anyone.
The reality is sports teams don’t survive unless they make money. That’s as true in men’s sports as it is in women’s sports. If you don’t believe it, ask Jerry Moyes, former owner of the Phoenix Coyotes, and Frank McCourt, soon to be the ex-owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Fortunately for MLB, the NHL and other men’s sports leagues, there are other owners available for those franchises, confident that with good management, they can be successful where others have failed. The same can’t be said for teams in women’s professional sports leagues.
Another frequent lament concerning the lack of prosperity in women’s professional sports leagues is that despite the “success” of Title IX, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, women’s professional sports leagues have never been successful. Again, those comments miss the point. Title IX is a federal mandate requiring equal opportunities for men and women in sports participation on the collegiate and high school levels. Women have the opportunity to play amateur sports as a result of court decree which interpreted the one-sentence statute on equality in education to include sports, not because women’s sports pays for itself. There is no equivalent to Title IX at the professional level. Teams must sink or swim based on the bottom line, which in women’s professional team sports consistently shines bright red.
What can be done to make women’s professional sports leagues successful? The first person to answer that question is destined to become very, very rich. Many have tried, and all have failed.
Reflecting a triumph of hope over experience, the WPS Board of Governors said it hopes to resume play in 2013, with as few as four or as many as six teams. We’ll see. But even if that “hope” becomes a reality, here’s a guarantee: After a brief and financially troubling existence, the league is destined to go the way of its predecessors.
Jordan Kobritz is a former attorney, CPA, and Minor League Baseball team owner. He is an Associate Professor of Sport Management and Sport Law at Eastern New Mexico University, teaches the Business of Sports at the University of Wyoming, and is a contributing author to the Business of Sports Network. Jordan can be reached at jkobritz@mindspring.com.
