Like many things in today's social reality, the boom of all the social media platforms, streaming sites, electronic publications, blogs and all forms of electronic media, women's soccer has gained a wider exposure to both the aficionados and uninformed. As a simple example, yesterday, one of my athletes was earning her first international cap with the Algerian national team vs Senegal in a qualifier for the African Cup of Nations and I was able to find a few sites that had game updates and after the game, was able to read some reports about the game. Not so long ago, a game of this nature would have been a well kept secret.
For the most part, women's soccer reaches its peak of exposure during two events, the World Cup and the Olympics. To a lesser extent, the U20 World Cup might garner some interest especially that it will proceed in the host country of the World Cup a year in advance. That means that starting this summer, there will be a 3 year cycle of top international competitions in 3 consecutive summers. However, women's soccer isn't about these 3 competitions. Like on the men's side, there are confederations tournaments, Euro's , Gold Cup, African Cup of Nations, Asia Cup, a women's Euro Champions League and domestic leagues providing some great women's soccer , Ligue1, NWSL, English Women's Super League, Women Serie A, Bundesliga to name but a few. However, unlike the men's game and surely far below any exposure received by the two major competitions, these quality levels of play go fairly unnoticed. Many would argue that there isn't a market for it, no money to be made broadcasting or promoting women's soccer. Or even more so that women's soccer is an major competition driven sport and there is little viability to a true professionalism of the women's soccer. Is this myth or reality ? The case against professional women’s soccer as anything more than a once-every-four-years (based on the World Cup) or twice in a four year cycle if we consider the Olympics, curiosity is easy to make. There’s enough of a history to make that point, and enough people predisposed to disliking or ignoring women’s sports to make it popular. The simplest thing to write about women’s soccer is that it had its moment ( or has its moments at each World Cup) and is now going back into the ground, not unlike a gopher. It’s just that, well, that view is short-sighted, ignores strong trends and is largely built on the world today being the world tomorrow. Women’s sports are changing. They’ve long been growing, but this is easy to dismiss when the wrong standards or unrealistic demands are applied. No, women’s sports are not as popular as men’s sports. Yes, the women who compete at a World Cup or Olympics will often from global exposure to domestic leagues in which the average salary is comparable to wage earned at most part time jobs. A recent report issued on the state of women's soccer actually tried to highlight the fact that women's player had great flexibility in being able to play professional while holding down a second job as a positive. This is not a choice, but a reality that women have to live with in order to earn a decent living wage. But the world in which these players are living is already very different from the one of the generation before. The changes are coming fast, in other words, and it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see women’s soccer making for a viable, growing and profitable professional sport. You just need an open mind, reasonable standards and the information. It’s about the more reasoned, level-headed planning and inevitable shifts behind it. The positive signs are subtle but solid, going far beyond the World Cup bump helping earn players a more mainstream recognition, or domestic leagues seeing improved attendance. There is this myth around women’s sports that people don’t watch, which more people are starting to see is not true. Do the research, women's game at the various domestic league games, at women's champions league fixtures etc are setting records. Granted, the naysayers will always compare these to the attendance at men's games as a clear indication that the women's game isn't viable... but this isn't realistic. The men's game benefits from promotion, exposure, and investment that is in no way equitable in any pro-rated manner. Rather, simply compare the interest generated for the women's game to similar games 2, 5 or 10 years ago. When one does this, we clearly see that interest is growing. The reasons are a combination of scale, publicity, self-awareness and timing. Part of what has doomed previous attempts at women’s soccer is an ambition unrestrained by reason. Today's reality as the internet and social media provide a wide ranging reach allow for more people to discover that women's soccer actually exists beyond one or two major competitions. That these players are not amateurs playing for pride of representing their country, but full time professionals ( albeit without decent salary for the most part) , training and playing week in, week out. There is a growing feeling within the sports and television industries that the traditionally lower performance of women’s broadcasts has more to do with lighter production quality, worse promotion and sparser coverage than the product on the field or court. However, let's be realistic, if we assume that 50% of any population is female, can you honestly say that a significant percent of simply women or girls wouldn't prefer to watch women's soccer ? And if women enjoy watching men's sports, why can't the opposite also be true? The progress is there. You just have to know where to look, and come with realistic expectations. This is part of the critical mass that is building in support of women’s sports. The progress is often missed by straight-up comparisons to men’s sports, but considering cultural factors and timing, this is like comparing a tech start-up company to Facebook if we use a business analogy. The start-up will probably never be Facebook, which is neither the point or the goal. They are two different products. If you know where and how to look, you can see massive improvements to the opportunities available for girls and women, but certainly not enough for an even comparison to men, particularly on the professional level. Even so, women’s soccer is showing obvious signs. The progress of parity in the women's at the international level is proof that grassroots support works. Not so long ago, women's soccer was dominated exclusively by the USA, Germany, Sweden , France on the fringes and sometimes additional countries like England. Brazil, China, Japan, that was often based on a golden generation of players and not on true player development. However, now, we are seeing the emergence of other countries, Holland, Canada, Australia, Korea among the top 10 in FIFA rankings but also traditional soccer powers on the men's side, like Spain, Denmark, Italy, Switzerland, and even Iceland, moving among the top 20. Much of the appeal for women’s soccer at this moment is wrapped in nationalism. The female players are much easier to find on TV, and much easier to get behind, when they’re representing their countries vs their clubs. But there is an enormous gap between the attention the game gets during major competitions and the point at which women’s soccer can make for a viable sports product and be part of an inevitable change to what the sports landscape will look like in the future. Having coached in the women's game for close to 30 years, I often think about a group of women being the biggest thing in world sports during the month of a World Cup or Olympics, and largely forgotten the soon after. I see this as an undeniable disappointment, and the gap between men’s sports far too wide to close. But that’s a false premise. Just thing back to the March Madness that just ended. College basketball or football players for that matter do not need to be as good as NBA of NFL players to make an interesting product, and women’s sports do not need to match men’s sports to be a success. Having realistic expectations is probably the key component to ensuring the continues growth of women's soccer. One of the most well-known case studies in marketing classes is of light beer. For years, light beer was dismissed. Seen as a woman’s beer. That changed when beer companies hired football players to promote it as less filling. No longer was the focus on what light beer lacked, but on what it provided. The expectations changed. That’s the kind of thing that women’s soccer needs. Soccer remains the world's game and here in North America, it is more popular than ever before. Advertisers can use stars already familiar to the public to sell the product. Expectations seem to have shifted, incremental investment in domestic leagues will help professionalize the game while the infrastructure of awareness and publicity is built. All of the trends are here. They’ve been here. Now, the culture and business factors are finally here, too. You don’t have to be interested in women’s soccer to see that it is growing. You just have to acknowledge the signs, and understand that the world is changing. Perhaps, it would also help if the naysayers would stop looking for reasons as to why the game can't grow and be part of the reasons it will.
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AuthorAfter many years of coaching at various levels and with different teams, I thought I would share some of my experiences and thoughts about coaching. Archives
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