Just days before the culmination of their work takes the field, Commissioner Tonya Antonucci and COO Mary Harvey give us a glimpse into what it's been like to lead this league to launch.
Tonya Antonucci, Commissioner, Women's Professional Soccer
It’s Women’s History Month, so let’s start by celebrating. Tell us about the best feeling you’ve had as this has become real – during the sweet moments when you can enjoy the significance of the role you are in.
We’ve had a few moments so far where it's hit me that this is real. Allocating the U.S. national team players to our WPS teams after the Olympics was tremendous, but I think the best moment so far might be the packed room at our 2009 WPS Draft in St. Louis. On one side we had fans, coaches and media. On the other, we had a few dozen players – most of whom had come on their own – hopeful about the opportunity to play in the world’s best women’s soccer league. To see the players who stayed through to the final rounds for a shot at a life in professional sports, that was a special moment.
Experience playing sports can certainly help one learn the value of trusting instincts, and Jeff Mallett (Former Yahoo! President/COO) has said you’ve got great business instincts. How has your trust in your instincts played a role here?
I did come from a business background building and managing Yahoo! Sports and our FIFA/World Cup relationship, and I think it certainly takes the instincts executed with conviction, but also the ability to map your vision to listening, learning and staying patient in building this from the ground up. We’ve brought a lot of different ownership groups and interested partners together and each and every one of them brings a unique perspective and set of needs to the table in constructing this league.
You’ve inevitably had to respond to critics since the financial crisis hit this past fall. What has been your main response to that person who says, “Now?”
We’re cognizant of the economic environment, and we took a hard look at the realities of the impact on our revenues, but over the last three and a half years we have slowly put all the pieces and infrastructure in place to launch this league in 2009. Coming off the 2008 Olympics is the right timing for the world-class players who are WPS. The league has a strong position in cash, and with our partnerships including PUMA as a major national sponsor we can weather through current conditions. In fact, we just finalized Philadelphia as our eighth official franchise for 2010, so even with the economic conditions today we are attracting investors. It’s certainly hurt us on the sponsorship side for 2009, but in tough economic times we know that people still enjoy world-class entertainment, especially at an affordable price. We have tickets as low as $10 and season tickets starting at $99. Not many leagues can say that.
How is WPS building off of the WNBA, LPGA and WTA best practices and how is WPS different from each of these other leagues?
We’ve certainly looked at what the other women’s pro sports leagues have done in order to market to fans and how they’ve set up their structures -- in particular the WNBA since they are a team sports league which has in some part built its success on its integration with the NBA platform and resources. There are some similarities there with our strategic partnership with MLS (Major League Soccer), which is a separate business from WPS but has some shared revenue streams and efficiencies from a cost perspective. And with LPGA and WTA, there are things we can learn there with respect to the marketability of those athletes to cross over into endemic male sports fandom. But in the end, we need to build our league based on the nuances of our sport, the unique fan base and our local grassroots philosophy. We are looking at slow, steady growth… to build one fan at a time. We need team owners and marketing partners that have ties to the soccer communities in their WPS team market. Our passionate youth soccer players and their families are our primary fan base but we also need to reach core soccer fans and sports fans in general, both men and women, with our product.
Fast-forward five or so years, and imagine the league as we at the Women's Sports Foundation foresee it: Strong and successful with steady development as a national entity. How will this have redefined the meaning of sport for a young girl?
For young girls it can once again be the place where their soccer dreams do come true. The U.S. certainly leads the way when it comes to opportunities for strong, successful female athletes, but I think the establishment of a stable and long-lasting women’s soccer league will also show that a world-class sports product can stand on its own merits: exciting play, fast-paced action, world-class talented individuals and fun entertainment. To achieve this, we’ll need young soccer-playing girls to realize that the culture of playing soccer at the club and elite level includes not only playing it but learning from it at the pro level as well. That might make for an interesting shift from the current soccer paradigm of doing (practices, games, and tournaments) to taking time for watching and admiring.
Mary Harvey, Chief Operating Officer, Women's Professional Soccer
Your work with FIFA included the identification of best practices in development of women’s soccer globally. What from the international findings do you see as most relevant to WPS on a national level?
I would say a few things. First of all, developing and employing female technicians is very important to the sustainability of the women’s game. We saw this over and over in the research we did in over 160 countries worldwide. And it’s important for different reasons, depending on the context (it is important in Pakistan or Iran for different reasons than it is in Germany, for example, but in both cases, female technicians are very, very important). I’d like to see more women head coaches matriculate into the WPS ranks – and I think this will be a natural progression. We will also see more and more women officiating our matches, as we provide a day-in, day-out platform for them to develop, outside of the FIFA tournaments. This is very important.
Another thing that is very important is the use of high-profile men to help promote the women. In England, for example, they did their annual kit launch using the captains of both the men's and women's teams, which allowed the spotlight of the men to shine on the women. In this country, it also helps tremendously. Just a few weeks ago, we had a press conference in LA, where, in front of every network affiliate, Kobe Bryant was positively gushing about what a huge fan he is of three-time FIFA World Player of the Year Marta and how important it is to be able to take his daughters to see the game played at a professional level. That’s huge. It gives us great exposure in the mainstream media, and at the same time, credentializes the sport and the women. It was just fantastic. We could use more of that.
What moment in your time as a player made you a “believer” so-to-speak? Describe for us a moment that made you feel that the dream of a pro women’s league was attainable.
I think it was the 1996 Olympic final. I remember watching the local news a few hours before the game in the dorm where we were all staying in Athens, Ga., and watching the traffic report show traffic around the (University of Georgia) campus… and the shock and wonder of realizing that we were looking at our game traffic on TV. We’d never had game traffic before. By the time the whistle blew for kickoff, there were 76,481 people in the stadium to watch us play. It was just an incredible feeling to think, “wow, they are here to watch us!”. That’s when I think I knew that we were witnessing something change… and that after that night, many things would be possible that weren’t thought doable before.
It could be said that WUSA and elite women’s soccer in the United States rode on the shoulders of marketing that girl-next-door image exuded by players like Foudy, Hamm, Lily and Fawcett. Despite the amazing Olympic year, there seemed to be less national attention than in years past. Can you comment on the marketability of the new leaders like Kai, Wambach, Marta?
Well, the 2008 team was just that – a team of 18, rather than a team with four or five well-known stars that are recognizable. With the group before, it also helped before to have had the Olympics in 1996 and then the 1999 Women’s World Cup both held in the USA, which provided lots of opportunities to build stars. It’s hard to do that when you’re playing all your big tournaments abroad (Greece, China).
This generation is coming of age in a different environment than that, and in one that has never, ever, been this competitive. And that is all the more reason that the 2008 Olympic final was just an incredible achievement for these women. From a sporting point of view, I’ve never seen a total team victory quite like the 2008 women’s Olympic final. That was absolutely a total team effort, from the 11 on the field, to the ones that came in off the bench, and from those who were on the bench. And the firepower came from all over the place. Usually, you have a few players who account for all or most of the scoring. That team got it from everywhere on the field. Heck, Angela Hucles hadn’t played as a forward since college, I think, and steps in at the Olympics, no less, and nets four goals. So perhaps that team may not have a few of what Madison Avenue might consider to be stars at this point in time, but they sure had an 18-person unit that got the job done. That tournament and the final in particular, was one of gutsiest performances by a team I’ve ever seen.
But back to the question – marketability of the new leaders. This generation, I think, is about showing off excellence in the sport and playing it with skill and flamboyance that we’ve never seen before. The skill level of what we’re seeing now is really something.
Relive the culmination leading up to the launch of WPS in WPS: It's Time.
Catch the inaugural match on March 29th when the Los Angeles Sol take on the Washington Freedom. Get the full schedule.