https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/3...world-cups

This subject has been kind of hovering around my college sports thoughts for a long time. Our strongest sport worldwide, other than the NFL and NBA for the Men, is Soccer for the Women. Numerous leagues in men's soccer dominate us in Europe, and numerous countries in South America also have soccer as their #1 sport. In the WNBA, our stars can get paid more by playing overseas than they do in the WNBA. However, in women's soccer, the unquestioned beating heart of the world runs through the US. Where does our dominating women's National Soccer Team get their stars? Colleges. Stanford alums dominated our 2023 team with 5 athletes, but after that a whole bunch of schools had one or 2 former players show up:

Casey Murphy Rutgers
Alyssa Naeher Penn State
Alana Cook Stanford
Crystal Dunn North Carolina
Emily Fox North Carolina
Naomi Girma Stanford
Sofia Huerta Santa Clara
Kelley O'Hara Stanford
Emily Sonnett Virginia
Savannah DeMelo Southern California
Julie Ertz Santa Clara
Rose Lavelle Wisconsin
Kristie Mewis Boston College
Ashley Sanchez UCLA
Andi Sullivan Stanford
Alex Morgan California
Megan Rapinoe Portland
Sophia Smith Stanford
Lynn Williams Pepperdine
Aubrey Kingsbury Wake Forest

Does this eventually translate into a moment for women's soccer (or another moment)? I think it does, and in the next couple of years we should expect to see a significant rise in soccer enthusiasm, especially women's soccer enthusiasm. This applies doubly for Major Colleges, you can fit a whole lot of scholarship athletes onto a women's soccer team, and it has the potential to become a decent money sport down the road.

Hmmm, it appears that women's soccer still has a LONG way to go to catch up with basketball though. From the below link, my Aggies pulled 6,743 fans for a game in Aug 2023 that was a top 10 all time attendance figure for a regular season women's college soccer game. UConn, Iowa, and many other women's bball programs regularly draw more fans than that for regular season games, even my own Aggies women's basketball team has pulled more than 6,743 a couple times this season.

Perhaps soccer has further to go than I thought.

https://www.soccerwire.com/news/texas-am...r-history/

This seems a good moment to remind all that the Florida State Seminoles are your reigning national champions in women's soccer. The Seminoles capped an undefeated season with a dominating win over Stanford in December to earn their fourth national title in ten years.



https://seminoles.com/news/2023/12/4/wom...r-stanford

I'll go on record as saying that soccer will never fully catch on until the country experiences the dramatic changes from the changing of demographics due to immigration (please don't spiral this thread into a Spin Room thread).

Until then, soccer will only be a curiosity until it peaks in popularity every 4 years for each primary gender's respective World Cup. This will gradually change for the next century or so (at least) until soccer is most popular, so in 100 years wake me out of my grave and tell me how much has changed in country and I'll be as amazed as a dead man can be.

May happen sooner than a century if American football is outlawed, though the elephant in the room is so may soccer or at least headers (due to CTE).

(03-01-2024 02:59 AM)Gitanole Wrote:  This seems a good moment to remind all that the Florida State Seminoles are your reigning national champions in women's soccer. The Seminoles capped an undefeated season with a dominating win over Stanford in December to earn their fourth national title in ten years.

https://seminoles.com/news/2023/12/4/wom...r-stanford

Congratulations to the 'Noles.

That is the same program that the ACC helped FSU graduate from club level.
Matter of fact, John Swofford sent his only daughter to Florida State to help increase the talent level for the 'Noles when that transition was made.

Title IX has turned the US into the new East Germany of Women's sports. While Men win fewer and fewer medals, women win more. Why? Because the pool of women being trained in college is far larger than men in sports other than football.

But as for US Soccer, women peaked probably a decade back. The European and South American clubs have build up their women's development from next to nothing to well ahead of the US. Just as China initially held the lead, then relinquished it to the US then faded into oblivion, the same pattern is beginning to repeat for US Women's soccer. In a decade it ill be as far behind the Europeans and South Americans as the men.

(03-01-2024 11:08 AM)Stugray2 Wrote:  Title IX has turned the US into the new East Germany of Women's sports. While Men win fewer and fewer medals, women win more. Why? Because the pool of women being trained in college is far larger than men in sports other than football.

But as for US Soccer, women peaked probably a decade back. The European and South American clubs have build up their women's development from next to nothing to well ahead of the US. Just as China initially held the lead, then relinquished it to the US then faded into oblivion, the same pattern is beginning to repeat for US Women's soccer. In a decade it ill be as far behind the Europeans and South Americans as the men.

Though I understand the sentiment, I don't agree with it. The US women will be a power for a long time. If you look at the countries that are good at women's soccer, they tend to be Western European and Nordic, former British countries (US, Canada, and Australia), and the Asian giants (South Korea, Japan, and China). Brazil is the only Latin American country that is regularly good. It seems to me that the places where women's lives are best are the countries that are good at women's soccer.

(03-01-2024 11:08 AM)Stugray2 Wrote:  Title IX has turned the US into the new East Germany of Women's sports. While Men win fewer and fewer medals, women win more. Why? Because the pool of women being trained in college is far larger than men in sports other than football.

But as for US Soccer, women peaked probably a decade back. The European and South American clubs have build up their women's development from next to nothing to well ahead of the US. Just as China initially held the lead, then relinquished it to the US then faded into oblivion, the same pattern is beginning to repeat for US Women's soccer. In a decade it ill be as far behind the Europeans and South Americans as the men.

Women's sports in the US don't have football to draw away the top athletes. They had one bad world cup b/c all those great players from the 2010s got old and the new generation lost their focus a bit, but they'll be back.

The NWSL is considered the top women's soccer league in the world. Their salary cap of $2.75m is actually about double what typical WNBA teams pay their players, and the top women's players are celebrities in their own right. Alex Morgan made $7.1m last year, 800k from player soccer (roughly equivalent to what Sam Kerr made in the WSL) and all the rest from endorsements from companies like bodyarmor, Michelob Ultra and Hublot.

One thing that we will see more of in the future is top female soccer players coming from different places, but the enthusiasm and financial support the NWSL (and our National team) receive ensure that it won't fade away into obvlivion.

We dominate the sports that we care about the most. For men, that's football, basketball and baseball. For women, it's soccer and basketball, and we're pretty good at softball, too. Our problem with men's soccer is that, in most of the world it's the unquestioned top sport, whereas here it's behind the 3 I already mentioned, and hockey, too.

(03-01-2024 03:13 AM)C2__ Wrote:  I'll go on record as saying that soccer will never fully catch on until the country experiences the dramatic changes from the changing of demographics due to immigration (please don't spiral this thread into a Spin Room thread).

Until then, soccer will only be a curiosity until it peaks in popularity every 4 years for each primary gender's respective World Cup. This will gradually change for the next century or so (at least) until soccer is most popular, so in 100 years wake me out of my grave and tell me how much has changed in country and I'll be as amazed as a dead man can be.

May happen sooner than a century if American football is outlawed, though the elephant in the room is so may soccer or at least headers (due to CTE).

Nonsense. The overwhelmingly Hispanic kids in South Texas prefer football. They're Texans, not Argentinians/Brazilians/Mexicans/Columbians, etc.

Soccer does not fit the American personality. Its why football has displaced baseball which was popular in a more rural, slower paced America.

I know many of the immigrants and their children will convert to American sports and assimilate. But not nearly all.

Down the street from me about a couple hundred meters away, I used to routinely see first generation, if not later generation, Latinos take over a church parking lot (a grassy field next to the building) and play soccer. So there is still a high passion and participation for soccer in this country and it becomes even more pronounced where I'm originally from, Southern California, at least in my experience.

This and the fact that soccer is already becoming more popular overall, not just with Hispanics. SportsCenter talks and shows highlights from European soccer leagues and especially Messi and Inter Miami. They pretty much never talked soccer in the 90's, especially before the founding of MLS and as recently as some time in last decade (i.e. the 2000 Teens) it was a fringe sport. Now soccer plays are shown frequently on SC Top Plays/10 with at least 2 plays per night and usually as many as 3-5 a night. It's big on the CBS networks, to the point that The Talk, Let's Make a Deal and the Jim Rome Show simulcast are sometimes (and occasionally, often) preempted by soccer, especially European soccer such as the Champions League. CBS has so much soccer content, they created the Golazo Network named for one of the most popular shows on CBSSN.

MLS has expanded and spread like a plague in this country over the last 20 and especially last 10 years.

On this board, especially on the AAC board, there was a series of threads that routinely talked about soccer and were titled something like "The Official AAC Board Soccer Thread" or the new one. These were Anglo or at least Americanized people doing this that are mostly into American sports (especially football), as that's the primary makeup of the board. And this was a decade (or a little less ago).

So soccer is growing as a sport in this country, even in football stronghold Texas, just not in an extremely noticeable manner, at least not yet.

I guess I'm old school (age 61) but my three favorite team sports are basketball, football and baseball (in that order and college/pro for all three). Hockey is exciting in person but I never attend Preds game here in Nashville and I rarely watch the sport on TV. Soccer is a rather big deal in Nashville but I have minimal interest. Lipscomb's men's soccer program is quite strong, however.

My fourth favorite team sport has become, during the past few years, volleyball, as it's perfectly suited for television. I watch some women's college volleyball. The young ladies are skilled and lovely (oh, my goodness; I'm sounding like schmolik).

(03-01-2024 03:18 PM)bill dazzle Wrote:  I guess I'm old school (age 61) but my three favorite team sports are basketball, football and baseball (in that order and college/pro for all three). Hockey is exciting in person but I never attend Preds game here in Nashville and I rarely watch the sport on TV. Soccer is a rather big deal in Nashville but I have minimal interest. Lipscomb's men's soccer program is quite strong, however.

My fourth favorite team sport has become, during the past few years, volleyball, as it's perfectly suited for television. I watch some women's college volleyball. The young ladies are skilled and lovely (oh, my goodness; I'm sounding like schmolik).

I'm older also and have pretty much the same preferences. My kids are 20s and care more about soccer than I do, but its still minor, like hockey. For me hockey was a distant 4th. I followed it a little when the Howes were with the WHA Aeros in Houston and went to a few games. They will sometimes watch a little bit of soccer.

(03-01-2024 03:18 PM)bill dazzle Wrote:  I guess I'm old school (age 61) but my three favorite team sports are basketball, football and baseball (in that order and college/pro for all three). Hockey is exciting in person but I never attend Preds game here in Nashville and I rarely watch the sport on TV. Soccer is a rather big deal in Nashville but I have minimal interest. Lipscomb's men's soccer program is quite strong, however.

My fourth favorite team sport has become, during the past few years, volleyball, as it's perfectly suited for television. I watch some women's college volleyball. The young ladies are skilled and lovely (oh, my goodness; I'm sounding like schmolik).

(03-01-2024 03:18 PM)bill dazzle Wrote:  I guess I'm old school (age 61) but my three favorite team sports are basketball, football and baseball (in that order and college/pro for all three). Hockey is exciting in person but I never attend Preds game here in Nashville and I rarely watch the sport on TV. Soccer is a rather big deal in Nashville but I have minimal interest. Lipscomb's men's soccer program is quite strong, however.

My fourth favorite team sport has become, during the past few years, volleyball, as it's perfectly suited for television. I watch some women's college volleyball. The young ladies are skilled and lovely (oh, my goodness; I'm sounding like schmolik).

Volleyball is different than college soccer. Except for the very top teams, women's college soccer is just bad. They have some defensive skills, but not the ball handling skills. So it is really, really boring to watch. Several of my son's elementary school Y league teammates had better ball handling skills.

(03-01-2024 05:53 AM)XLance Wrote:  

(03-01-2024 02:59 AM)Gitanole Wrote:  This seems a good moment to remind all that the Florida State Seminoles are your reigning national champions in women's soccer. The Seminoles capped an undefeated season with a dominating win over Stanford in December to earn their fourth national title in ten years.

https://seminoles.com/news/2023/12/4/wom...r-stanford

Congratulations to the 'Noles.

That is the same program that the ACC helped FSU graduate from club level.
Matter of fact, John Swofford sent his only daughter to Florida State to help increase the talent level for the 'Noles when that transition was made.

And the Noles gave you Mac Brown, not an even trade so you owe us.

(03-01-2024 11:08 AM)Stugray2 Wrote:  Title IX has turned the US into the new East Germany of Women's sports. While Men win fewer and fewer medals, women win more. Why? Because the pool of women being trained in college is far larger than men in sports other than football.

But as for US Soccer, women peaked probably a decade back. The European and South American clubs have build up their women's development from next to nothing to well ahead of the US. Just as China initially held the lead, then relinquished it to the US then faded into oblivion, the same pattern is beginning to repeat for US Women's soccer. In a decade it ill be as far behind the Europeans and South Americans as the men.

Before Title IX, women's athletics barely existed in this country. When I graduated from high school in 1973, the few girls' sports that existed were afterthoughts. College athletic scholarships for girls were almost non-existent. That has changed for the better. In Southern California, there is girls' soccer and girls' softball played year-round. Last Friday Night I went to the Southern Section Open Division high school basketball championships for boys and girls. A buddy of mine had a niece who is a starting guard on one of the teams. Every girl starting on both teams had at least one scholarship offer. A lot of talented players. The boys' game had a lot of talent as well. I think Title IX has been great for the young women of this country and I don't see America falling behind the rest of the world in athletics, but you do have to remember that Americans are barely 5% of the world population. There is going to be a lot of competition.

All of these women's sports have a lot of growth ahead of them. As an example, the Angel City woman's pro soccer team in Los Angeles averaged 19,756 fans in 2023 in a 22,000-seat stadium. The LAFC men's team averaged 22,115 in the same stadium, located next to the LA Coliseum in the USC neighborhood. They need to get more attention from the media, which will eventually happen.

(03-01-2024 03:51 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(03-01-2024 03:18 PM)bill dazzle Wrote:  I guess I'm old school (age 61) but my three favorite team sports are basketball, football and baseball (in that order and college/pro for all three). Hockey is exciting in person but I never attend Preds game here in Nashville and I rarely watch the sport on TV. Soccer is a rather big deal in Nashville but I have minimal interest. Lipscomb's men's soccer program is quite strong, however.

My fourth favorite team sport has become, during the past few years, volleyball, as it's perfectly suited for television. I watch some women's college volleyball. The young ladies are skilled and lovely (oh, my goodness; I'm sounding like schmolik).

I'm older also and have pretty much the same preferences. My kids are 20s and care more about soccer than I do, but its still minor, like hockey. For me hockey was a distant 4th. I followed it a little when the Howes were with the WHA Aeros in Houston and went to a few games. They will sometimes watch a little bit of soccer.

If the Preds get hot and march to the Stanley Cup Finals, I will defintely watch and find it exciting. So I guess I'm a fairweather NHL/Preds fan.

(03-01-2024 03:57 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(03-01-2024 03:18 PM)bill dazzle Wrote:  I guess I'm old school (age 61) but my three favorite team sports are basketball, football and baseball (in that order and college/pro for all three). Hockey is exciting in person but I never attend Preds game here in Nashville and I rarely watch the sport on TV. Soccer is a rather big deal in Nashville but I have minimal interest. Lipscomb's men's soccer program is quite strong, however.

My fourth favorite team sport has become, during the past few years, volleyball, as it's perfectly suited for television. I watch some women's college volleyball. The young ladies are skilled and lovely (oh, my goodness; I'm sounding like schmolik).

Volleyball is different than college soccer. Except for the very top teams, women's college soccer is just bad. They have some defensive skills, but not the ball handling skills. So it is really, really boring to watch. Several of my son's elementary school Y league teammates had better ball handling skills.

I've never enjoyed what little women's college soccer I've watched on TV over the years. As you say, and I agree, it seems so inferior (I realize that sounds disrespectful toward the ladies).

But women's college volleyball. Wow. The young women are extremely quick, agile and explosive. It's impressive.

Of the sports that both men and women play, those for which I enjoy watching women as much as (if not more than) men are volleyball, diving, gymnastics, billiards, tennis, table tennis and lacrosse.

I've also grown to appreciate women's college basketball more so than I would have anticipated, say, 20 years ago.

I've never liked men's soccer, but I got into women's during the pandemic. It's not as exciting, and I like it that way. I view it kind of like baseball: there are a few exciting moments, but otherwise just kick back and watch. Women don't have big silly celebrations when they score a goal, just a group hug and move on. I like a few college teams, a few NWSL teams, a few national teams, and a German club team.

(03-01-2024 11:17 AM)shizzle787 Wrote:  

(03-01-2024 11:08 AM)Stugray2 Wrote:  Title IX has turned the US into the new East Germany of Women's sports. While Men win fewer and fewer medals, women win more. Why? Because the pool of women being trained in college is far larger than men in sports other than football.

But as for US Soccer, women peaked probably a decade back. The European and South American clubs have build up their women's development from next to nothing to well ahead of the US. Just as China initially held the lead, then relinquished it to the US then faded into oblivion, the same pattern is beginning to repeat for US Women's soccer. In a decade it ill be as far behind the Europeans and South Americans as the men.

Though I understand the sentiment, I don't agree with it. The US women will be a power for a long time. If you look at the countries that are good at women's soccer, they tend to be Western European and Nordic, former British countries (US, Canada, and Australia), and the Asian giants (South Korea, Japan, and China). Brazil is the only Latin American country that is regularly good. It seems to me that the places where women's lives are best are the countries that are good at women's soccer.

The US doesn't have a pro league strong enough with enough money to keep and develop players. The Europeans do with their junior programs (women really are one of those) which churns out superior players and offers superior pay and competition. The US simply cannot compete. College scholarships have given US women a head start, but the rest of the dynamics are against them, and continuation in club rather than changing teams/coaches to something schools see as a backwater non-revenue sport is by nature and in the long run much inferior to the European model.

The decline of US women is already underway. It's irreversible.

(03-01-2024 05:12 PM)bill dazzle Wrote:  

(03-01-2024 03:51 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(03-01-2024 03:18 PM)bill dazzle Wrote:  I guess I'm old school (age 61) but my three favorite team sports are basketball, football and baseball (in that order and college/pro for all three). Hockey is exciting in person but I never attend Preds game here in Nashville and I rarely watch the sport on TV. Soccer is a rather big deal in Nashville but I have minimal interest. Lipscomb's men's soccer program is quite strong, however.

My fourth favorite team sport has become, during the past few years, volleyball, as it's perfectly suited for television. I watch some women's college volleyball. The young ladies are skilled and lovely (oh, my goodness; I'm sounding like schmolik).

I'm older also and have pretty much the same preferences. My kids are 20s and care more about soccer than I do, but its still minor, like hockey. For me hockey was a distant 4th. I followed it a little when the Howes were with the WHA Aeros in Houston and went to a few games. They will sometimes watch a little bit of soccer.

If the Preds get hot and march to the Stanley Cup Finals, I will defintely watch and find it exciting. So I guess I'm a fairweather NHL/Preds fan.

I'll watch basketball and football on TV, even soccer some times, but baseball and hockey are much better in person.