Month: May 2013

soccer

Washington Spirit at Seattle: Battle of the unluckys

Posted on by Beau Dure

I’ll have to confess that I didn’t stay up to watch the Spirit’s late-night game at Seattle last night. I won’t belabor my scheduling problems, but it simply made more sense for me to get up and watch it on demand this morning, thanks to the NWSL’s nice YouTube archive:

And this might be the way I approach games I don’t see myself. I’m not there to gather quotes, and I haven’t seen much reaction to the game except this from Seattle coach Laura Harvey (via SoccerWire’s Liviu Bird):

“We concede stupid goals. We just let teams back into games, and we keep doing it.”

And that sums it up. The Spirit won 4-2, and it wasn’t even Washington’s best performance of the season.

Seattle struck early in each half, and each time, a Washington defender was nowhere in sight. The Reign’s Lindsay Taylor neatly chest-trapped the ball in front of Ingrid Wells and hammered the ball past a stunned Ashlyn Harris in the seventh minute to give Seattle a 1-0 lead. In the second half, with Washington leading 2-1, Seattle’s Christine Nairn played a ball into the air for Teresa Noyola, who was marked only by the 5-foot-0-and-change Diana Matheson.

Credit Taylor and Noyola for terrific finishes, but the Spirit may need to figure out what happened defensively on those plays and a couple more, including one in which Noyola and another Reign player had half the box to themselves. Seattle had too easy of a time getting the ball into empty space.

Seattle, though, has more difficult defensive questions to answer. Losing Katie Deines early in the game didn’t help, but the goal that put Washington in the lead was embarrassing — Michelle Betos made the first save off Lori Lindsey’s free kick, only to see Ali Krieger pop up in front of her for the rebound. Betos made another save, but Krieger still had time to leap and nod the ball into the net. The Reign players in the box simply failed to react.

The best part for the Spirit: The chances were converted. Robyn Gayle found Matheson deep in the Reign’s half of the field, and the Canadian dynamo lashed it past Betos at a tough angle. Tiffany McCarty, who made a good case for remaining in the starting lineup, beat three defenders with one touch and clinically finished. And Tori Huster showed why she’s been getting such (Ow! Ooof!) attention on set pieces, finishing with a glancing header when the Reign defense lost her on a free kick.

The bottom line: Washington is a young team, as we’ve said over and over again. Getting that first win is just the boost of confidence they needed. This was a battle between two teams that have been dealt a good bit of misfortune — take all the players each team had from allocations and the drafts, and you’d make two drastically different starting lineups. (A Garciamendez-Noyola matchup would have been fun!)

Now on to Portland, where it’s virtually impossible to imagine a visiting team wi … wait … what?

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soccer

NWSL attendance: Perception, reality and more perception

Posted on by Beau Dure

We’re roughly 20% of the way through the debut NWSL season. Ready to take stock of attendance?

Jeff Kassouf did, pointing to low numbers in New Jersey and Chicago as possible reasons for concern. That’s a good conversation-starter.

I checked in with Sky Blue’s Thomas Hofstetter and Chicago’s Arnim Whisler, who raised a few points:

1. Teams had no time to sell. Whisler: “Most of the table is set for attendance the last month of the PRIOR season. Season ticket sales are strongest during the prior season, we usually have all winter to resell our groups and season ticket holders and this year we started — beyond the hard core standing in line to place an order fans — in February!”

The Red Stars existed in 2012 but could not say what form they would take in 2013 until the NWSL was official.

Most new teams and leagues I’ve seen have been announced a year or so in advance. MLS expansion teams all had plenty of time to ramp up. MLS itself, along with the WUSA and WPS, was years in the making. The NWSL went from announcement to debut in a few months.

Whisler accepts the pressure to improve. “Next year started yesterday — we have many plans league wide to get to the next level in awareness, sponsorship and marketing.”

2. Seasons in the sun. Whisler says Chicago sports tend to build steadily. Spring weather is a factor, as are conflicts with school-year soccer activities and the busy NBA/NHL/MLB overlap. Some MLS teams do indeed struggle with spring, only to rebound later.

3. Locations. Would Sky Blue draw more fans at, say, Red Bull Arena? Probably. But consider this from Hofstetter: “Sky Blue for example cut its stadium cost by 60% over the past three years, which had a bigger impact on our financials then 500 more in the stadium per game.”

And if anyone wants to build an 8,000-seat grass stadium near mass transit in the Chicago area, please call Whisler. That’s not Toyota Park, which is too big for the Red Stars and not exactly downtown. The Red Stars’ current home of Benedictine University is far cheaper for the team and fans, and Whisler says the walkup sales are better in Benedictine than they were at TP.

4. Bottom line. Hofstetter and Whisler say they’re ahead of projections. Some detail from Hofstetter: “For the first time since the beginning of WPS, we are ahead of projections. After 4 games (including season ticket sales and tickets sold for games throughout the season) we generated already more than 50% of our expected ticket sales.”

And the NWSL is built to absorb lower crowds. Hofstetter: “The NWSL is the first league that is set up correctly (including WUSA) and from a SKy Blue FC perspective we are right where we wanted to be in 2013.”

Last word from that perspective, from Hofstetter: “People have to understand that it doesn’t matter what the (attendance) number is. It matters if the revenue generated with tickets are on target and from what I am hearing across the board they are either on target or above expectations for all of the teams at the moment.”

5. The word from the league. I got this statement from NWSL executive director Cheryl Bailey:

“Our goal is to grow the league in many ways as we move forward and attendance will be one area of significance to us. The league is paying close attention to the attendance numbers, but we don’t want to overreact after a small sample of games in the early part of the season. In these early stages we are being patient, along with the clubs.

“As we move along, we’ll continue to have conversations about ways to grow attendance. And at the end of the season we’ll be able to do a much more in-depth evaluation of multiple aspects of the league, including the turnout at stadiums.”

So should we not worry about the crowds?

In the short term, in terms of teams folding, my guess is no. The Red Stars, Sky Blue and Western New York — where WPS attendance was dismal until the World Cup and the Wambach homecoming — have persevered since the WPS days. Sky Blue didn’t draw many fans in WPS, either.

I don’t know enough about anyone’s accounting to know how small is too small when it comes to attendance or how many losses people are willing to incur. Last season, the W-League’s Pali Blues may not have been paying salaries but still managed to bring aboard Sarah Huffman, Whitney Engen, Nikki Washington, Mariah Nogueira, Liz Bogus and company. Attendance for Pali Blues games: 467, 357, 300, 287, 256, 247, 123, 114. They’re still in business. MagicJack was playing for crowds of hundreds with the most expensive women’s soccer team this side of Lyon.

We could just call this season, particularly the early days, as a time to consolidate and build foundations. Teams aren’t spending tons of money just to keep the doors open. And as MLS pioneer Lamar Hunt once said, to build a business, you have to stay in business.

And even in the long term, it’s clear that NWSL teams don’t need giant crowds to survive. Washington’s Bill Lynch said his  club, which includes a reserve team in the W-League and youth operations, would break even at 3,000. Boston’s Dilboy Stadium won’t hold much more than that after renovations.

But … what about perception?

Getting mainstream press coverage these days is difficult. Newspapers are getting smaller. SportsCenter and other highlight shows only have so much time, and they’re trying to focus on bigger sports as cable competition ramps up. More leagues are competing for attention. Major League Lacrosse has teams that average more than 9,000 fans, and when was the last time you saw that get a big segment on SportsCenter?

Then there’s sponsorship. Does a crowd of 1,200 scare away folks with money?

They’re legitimate questions. And by the end of the season, they’ll be big questions. We’re likely to see some regression to the mean — Washington will have weeknight games, which will be challenging for people in Northern Virginia and D.C. trying to battle rush-hour traffic on congested I-270. Chicago and Sky Blue will have more opportune dates.

And when all that has passed, we’ll ask these questions again.

Note: The first version of this post referred to Arnim Whisler and Arnim Wheeler. No idea how I came up with the name Wheeler. I blame Chelsea.

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rugby

Time for a rugby reality check

Posted on by Beau Dure

Want to know the best place to read up on the quest for professional rugby in the United States?

BigSoccer, of course.

The venerable message board picked up the discussion after The Guardian posted a couple of pieces on RugbyLaw, a startup venture that would set up matches between the London Irish club and a hodgepodge of internationals with newly converted college football players. The hope is that a league would spring from such an effort.

The Guardian‘s headlines, unfortunately, dramatically overstated the NFL’s involvement with the venture. See the comment from RugbyLaw’s George Robertson on this ESPN post.

Issues with the RugbyLaw plan itself, at least as presented in The Guardian:

– Failure to learn from soccer. The NASL (the old one, not the new one) went big, then went home. So did the WUSA. MLS did things differently, and it’s still here. (See Scott Yoshonis’ response at BigSoccer for more on those points.)

– From the story: “If a professional lacrosse league can exist in the US, why not a tournament for the world’s third-most popular team sport?” Probably because the NCAA lacrosse final has been drawing crowds of 40,000 and up for much of the past decade. And because most professional lacrosse players have day jobs and/or play year-round indoor/outdoor.

– The plan is going forward with little more than cautious curiosity from USA Rugby. Oh, great.

Another pro rugby proposal, the American Professional Rugby Competition, seems to be going about things in a more traditional route. They’re not looking for high school stadiums, but they also don’t want crowds to be lost in NFL caverns. They’re studying MLS and talking with NHL, NFL and especially MLS people.

Based on that scant information, I’d think the APRC has the edge. But as with all leagues, it’s not up to those of us in the blogosphere. Whoever convinces investors to step forward will be the winner. All we can really hope for is that whatever emerges is stable. Rugby deserves a long-term league like lacrosse has, not the “three-and-outs” we’ve seen in women’s soccer.

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mma, olympic sports

Today in wrestling’s Olympic battle

Posted on by Beau Dure

Hey, Dana White! Bjorn Rebney! What do you big-time MMA promoters think wrestling should do to stay in the Olympics?

Wrestling’s leaders have indeed asked, and my former USA TODAY colleague Kelly Whiteside has the story on what they’re considering — everything from dramatic walkouts to new clothes. The story includes this great anecdote:

 “Two pieces? Dan will probably roll over in his grave,” (Mike Novogratz) said about the legend standing next to him.

“Nah. I wore a three-piece in college,” said Gable about his time at Iowa State in the late 1960s. “A shirt, tights and a pair of shorts that went over.”

Someone who wore a lot less than that on his way to nine Olympic gold medals is weighing in on wrestling’s behalf (via OlympicTalk):

As are more Olympic legends of the 70s and 80s:

(Still can’t believe Mark Spitz shaved that mustache.)

The “Rumble on the Rails” — USA, Iran and Russia in Grand Central Terminal — will be broadcast live today. USA vs. Iran at 3:30 ET on NBC Sports Network and USA vs. Russia on Universal Sports at 6 ET. Also online at TeamUSA.org

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mma

UFC contracts laid bare, marginally fair

Posted on by Beau Dure

Ever see something that used to be top-secret, then wondered why it was so secret?

That’s what happened today when Bleacher Report flexed its investigative muscle (No, I don’t mean that sarcastically — they’re making progress) and came up with a UFC fighter’s contract. Then they got comments from Dana White, Lorenzo Fertitta, UFC general counsel Lawrence Epstein, fighter agent Juanito Ibarra, Randy Couture and labor law professor Zev Eigen.

The result is well worth the read. But as with a lot of good journalism, it should start the discussion, not end it.

With that in mind, here are a few slide-by-slide thoughts:

(By suggestion, this has been edited to give more context.)

SLIDE 1 (overview): The comparison to the Yankees falls flat. How many people do the Yankees pay? How many in UFC — fighters, marketing, TV crews, Octagon crews, etc.? Lorenzo says 1,000 at any individual fight. (I’m assuming that the value of the Yankees does not include minor-league clubs, though it would include rights to some of those players.)

SLIDES 2/3: Ancillary rights (merchandising, fight reruns and so forth) are where the UFC arguments fall flat. Actors make money — not much, but a little — off reruns from their shows. Why should Zuffa be the sole profiteer on future runs of its fights?

The lawsuit to watch in terms of owning rights in perpetuity: O’Bannon v. NCAA. (That said, fighters are certainly in better shape than college athletes when it comes to video games and other ancillary rights. If O’Bannon loses, you have to wonder if fighters would have a chance.)

SLIDE 5: This includes the “champions’ clause,” in which the UFC maintains your rights as long you have the belt. All due respect to the expertise of Zev Eigen, but let’s save the “slavery” argument for unwilling workers, shall we?

SLIDE 6: As I read this, in the event a fight can’t happen, the fight still owes Zuffa a fight — and Zuffa still owes the fighter a fight. Not really surprised.

SLIDE 7: Juanito Ibarra: “Who is the genius that decided to pay an athlete less when he loses? Boxers don’t do that. No other sport, basketball or football, does that. They may have bonuses, sure, for making the All-Star team, but the foundation is built on guaranteed money.”

Is Ibarra seriously arguing that a boxer doesn’t get paid less when he loses? If I get paid $2 million to fight Manny Pacquiao and he knocks me out in the first round, am I getting $2 million for my next fight? Or is he arguing that bonuses are bonuses in the NBA, but bonuses aren’t bonuses in MMA?

SLIDE 8: This part is specific to Eddie Alvarez, and it has to do with his bonuses for each pay-per-view sale for his fights. Ibarra and Eigen are arguing here as if Eddie Alvarez is the only reason I paid $55 to watch a pay-per-view. That’s not the case in the UFC. Most cards are sold on the strength of several fights. Some fighters are exceptions who can sell cards by themselves — Eddie Alvarez isn’t one of those.

The better argument on UFC fighters’ behalf is actually farther down the card, where guys are making $6,000. There’s no argument to be made for Eddie Alvarez to receive Floyd Mayweather money.

SLIDE 9: This one shows what the UFC pays for travel for fighters and corner crew, and it’s surprising. UFC fighters generally rave about the treatment they receive when they travel to fights. I would have thought the UFC would have paid for two corner people for every fighter.

SLIDE 12: If you lose, the UFC can cut you. Harsh, perhaps. But that’s the nature of sports, as much as Eigen and Ibarra would like to claim otherwise. A lot of NFL contracts aren’t guaranteed. A lot of NBA and NHL contracts are short. And I’m covering a women’s soccer league in which a lot of players can be cut at any time.

SLIDE 13: The UFC asserts matching rights at the end of a contract. Again with the slavery argument? For a clause that says the UFC (the world’s biggest MMA promotion) can match the terms of a contract offered by someone else? Eigen isn’t helping his credibility here.

SLIDE 15: “Fighter acknowledges risks,” etc. Here, Eigen’s input is valuable. Fighters aren’t alone in signing contracts that say they understand the risks — even executives have to sign such things. Maybe journalists should sign them. “Journalist understands that Journalism is a soul-crushing activity that is hazardous to mental health and often leads to poor sleep and diet, resulting in further health issues …”

SLIDE 16: Limits on fighters referring to their UFC affiliations. This one just seems petty on the UFC’s part, and I’m surprised none of the Zuffa executives commented. Frank Mir can’t bill himself as a former UFC champion? Harsh. Maybe if it were “former UFC champion Frank Mir recommends Bill’s Underground Explosives Shop,” sure, but don’t other clauses in this contract limit such usage?

SLIDE 18: Commercial identification. This is a tricky one. Seems pretty obvious that if Bud Light has spent a zillion dollars to sponsor a fight card, a fighter might not want to walk out with a Miller Lite logo on his shorts. Beyond that, we hit a gray area.

SLIDE 19: Confidentiality. I don’t get this one at all. In most states, fighter pay IS disclosed. What is NOT disclosed is how much money they’re getting from sponsors. They may also get some locker-room bonuses, and I’m not sure it’s in the fighter’s best interests to see that money disclosed.

All of these discussions are worth having. But we’re still not much closer to the larger question: Are UFC fighters paid well enough? In other sports, athletes get maybe 40-50 percent of the revenue. The UFC, though, does much of its own TV production.

So take the total UFC revenue, then subtract the TV production costs. Do fighters get 40-50 percent of that? If yes, then a lot of the questions raised above go away. If not, then you have to wonder why Zuffa is nickel-and-diming these guys.

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olympic sports, soccer

Monday Myriad, May 13: Triathletes, pentathletes and mascots

Posted on by Beau Dure

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soccer

Washington Spirit vs. Boston: Ties, ties, ties!

Posted on by Beau Dure

Here’s a quick look at the top-to-bottom competitiveness of the NWSL:

– The Boston Breakers are unbeaten.

– The Washington Spirit is winless.

– The Breakers and Spirit have played twice.

– Both games have been ties.

The games have followed different paths. On the narrow carpet of the Breakers’ home ground, in both teams’ debut, the Breakers controlled midfield but didn’t have many attack options beyond hoofing the ball toward Sydney Leroux. That’s not a knock on the Breakers — if you’ve had little time together, that’s not a bad option. The Spirit got an early goal against the run of play and held on until stoppage time, when Leroux finally got the equalizer.

This time, the Breakers had a strong start, forcing Spirit keeper Ashlyn Harris into action twice in the early going. But the Spirit midfield showed how much it’s grown since Game 1, gradually asserting control of the game.

Naturally, they conceded a goal. And it came about through two former D.C. United Women’s players, Joanna Lohman and Lianne Sanderson, who spent some time socializing with their former teammates on the Washington Spirit Reserves when their bus arrived at the SoccerPlex. Sanderson drew two defenders and found Lohman open. Solid finish, 1-0.

So the Spirit had nothing to show for one of its strongest halves of the season. And it got worse.

Candace Chapman, playing her first game of the season, wasn’t fully fit to go 90 minutes. Subbing her out of the game after 45 minutes wasn’t a big surprise. But then Ali Krieger, one of the Spirit’s MVPs of the season so far, was going out. The Spirit resumed action with Kika Toulouse and Domenica Hodak replacing the international veterans.

“Precautionary,” Spirit coach Mike Jorden said of Krieger’s replacement. “She was feeling pain a little bit, and it’s so early in the season, we didn’t want to risk anything.”

Then the Spirit played, by far, its best half of the season. Starting with this:

Getting on the scoresheet this season was a matter of time for Lori Lindsey, but I’m not sure anyone expected something quite as emphatic.

The Spirit outshot the Breakers 5-1 in the second half, with four shots on goal to Boston’s 0. The Spirit had six corner kicks to Boston’s 0.

But the Spirit couldn’t really make much of those corner kicks. They’re not the tallest team, though Stephanie Ochs and Tori Huster are viable options. And the ref was letting them play, even when Huster was run over by a few Breakers in the box.

Boston still made a late surge, with Leroux left to rue …

Let me start that again: Boston still made a late surge, with Leroux regretting a miss from close range. When Heather O’Reilly is on the field, the counterattack is always a viable option.

Washington had one more good chance, with Caroline Miller making her now-customary sub appearance and late shot on goal to produce the opposing keeper’s best save of the night. One of these days, that shot is going in, and the Spirit will have its first win.

But the Spirit players and coaches were in a good mood despite finishing its four-game homestand without a win. They knew they were showing signs of improvement. Ashlyn Harris was in a playful mood postgame, praising the fill-in defenders and getting a good laugh when the Spirit’s backdrop for the postgame interviews fell on Ingrid Wells.

And Jorden was a good mood for someone whose midweek back surgery forced him to miss a few practices and will keep him out of this week’s trip to Seattle and Portland. Kris Ward will lead the team to the Northwest.

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soccer

Should young players stick with one club?

Posted on by Beau Dure

Elite youth soccer in the USA used to send its kids through this rotation of clubs: Youth club, ODP, high school, youth club, ODP, high school, big-time summer league (Super-Y, etc.), college, USL, college, USL … then maybe pro.

Now it’s supposed to look like this: Development Academy, Development Academy, Development Academy, Development Academy, pro.

The reason we’re supposed to be shifting to this new system is, of course, because That’s The Way They Do It In Europe. Just ask Jurgen Klinsmann.

Now consider this point about Klinsmann’s playing career and how it affected him as a coach:

Klinsmann, 48, agrees to revisit the experiences he amassed playing for eight clubs over the course of 17 seasons, exploring each coach’s philosophy and mining the elements he synthesized into his own.

So Klinsmann has grown in soccer by playing for different clubs. But our elite kids are supposed to sign up with FC Bigname Youth Club Vipers at age 12 and play for no other coaches in no other situations until college or the pros?

The old system is certainly chaotic. The summer leagues — PDL, W-League, NPSL, WPSL — are strange entities that grab players for a handful of games. ODP can require a ton of time and money on top of the time and money already spent on travel.

But when I speak with players and parents, I sometimes hear that they’ve learned more from their ODP coaches than from their club coaches. Or vice versa. Or that one coach pigeonholes a player as a left back, while another rotates him or her through different positions.

The “solution” to this situation is supposed to be greater uniformity in coaching. You get one coach. If that coach leaves, the new coach will have the same principles in mind.

Why not expose players to different coaches? Different ideas? Different positions? Don’t we want players who can adapt?

And going through different teams exposes players to different environments. High school soccer games may not be the lore of Friday Night Lights treatment just yet, but they’ll have more of an atmosphere than an ODP event. A youth soccer showcase is more likely to be highly competitive on the field and subdued off it.

The Academy system has the allure of simplicity. But could it also dumb down youth soccer?

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olympic sports

Monday Myriad, May 6

Posted on by Beau Dure

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Uncategorized

The 2013 book extravaganza

Posted on by Beau Dure

This year, I’m doing a lot less freelance work and focusing on a few projects:

1. I’m following the Washington Spirit of the new National Women’s Soccer League through its debut season and will publish an electronic book as soon as possible after the season is finished in late August.

2. I’m writing about youth soccer, specifically the Under-10s and below, for a book called Single-Digit Soccer.

3. I’m still blogging at SportsMyriad and will work up 2014 Olympic medal projections.

Two opportunities to publish my work:

1. My book on The Ultimate Fighter is finished. My representative for publishing rights is Margaret O’Connor at Innisfree Literary.

2. If you’re interested in Single-Digit Soccer, please contact me. I’ll also be open to deals on the Washington Spirit book, but I plan to push that out quickly and won’t be going through the usual publishing process.

If you need me for soccer, MMA or Olympic writing, feel free to contact me. I’m limiting my time but will listen to good offers. The work doesn’t have to pay a ton — if you think the topic is up my alley, go ahead and ask!

As always, enjoy following SportsMyriad and my lively duresport Twitter feed, where I always seem to find a good soccer argument.

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