Wednesday, July 03, 2002

WUSA UPDATE: The WUSA recorded it's one millionth customer over the weekend, by some internal reckoning. This is good news; I know attendance is slightly down in Season Two, but people should be going to these games. The WUSA is --without question-- the greatest women's professional sports league ever. Granted it has only one serious challenger to that title (the WNBA) but the play overall is much better in the WUSA --there's no cringe factor like you see still in WNBA games when somebody throws up a godawful shot. Which is probably because the WUSA doesn't have the WNBA's backing and need to make tons of money, so they haven't overexpanded like the WNBA, sticking with eight teams, like the NHL in the early days, trying to build an audience. And not thinning out a talent pool which is incredibly deep --I don't know if it's deeper than the WNBA's pool, but I think more girls play soccer than basketball; maybe-- since the WUSA is the only women's pro soccer league in the world. My beloved Philadelphia Charge has the best player in English history (Kelly Smith) and the best athlete in France today (Marinette Pichon) and two members of the Chinese national team, none of whom would be playing for money back at home. I'm not a fan of the various men's leagues around the world but what I'm seeing in WUSA games is not appreciably different in competitive terms than what I see in the men's game. So, I mean, my verdict is the WUSA is the best women's pro sports ever (or at least team sports; I know about tennis, golf, and billiards) and you should join the WUSA cult if you got a team in your city. There is literally nothing else like it.

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