Global Impact of the United States Women’s Soccer Team Craig Descoteaux Week 8 With over a decade past the initial phenomenon and spark to Women’s soccer due to the win of the United States Women winning Gold in 1999, we look to how far has the impact been felt through out the World. Is there been a steady growth of fans and game attendance during the regular season for most Countries? What changes made need to be addressed to increase the popularity. And finally, how do women from other countries view the success of the US Soccer team. Before we get into the depth of the women’s soccer programs of today, we are going to take a rewind to the 1999 US women’s soccer team and how their season leading to a Gold Medal sparked the ongoing trend for future teams. “The events of the summer of 1999 left a lasting legacy. Even the Sydney Olympics in 2000 when the United States fell to Norway 3-2 in a thriller of a match and subsequent World Cups in 2003 and 2007 were not as memorable as the ‘99 victory.” (Gretchen Miller). The Earth-shattering stats of the viewership are: Its reported attendance of 90,185 set a new international record for a women's sporting event and the Finals averaged 17.9 million viewers with about 40 million on U.S. broadcast television. Again, this is at a time when social media wasn’t around and the internet at its infancy. Jumping to the 2011 Women’s World Cup where “13.5 million people viewed which helped make that the second most watched soccer match in United States History (LeFeurve). With the success of the 1999 Women’s soccer team one would think that the World was ready to have a booming Women’s League. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. The Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA), but the league failed only three seasons after the 2011 launch (Le Feurve). After the failed WUSA came the Women’s Professional Soccer was born only to again struggle with low attendance, little to no exposure on media or even on ESPN. It seems that the only time that the world is interested in Women’s’ Soccer occurs only during the Olympics or World cup. Looking into Australia and the viewer-ship over there in fact, the 2002 final, even without Australia’s participation, was the most watched sporting event on Australian television in 2002 (Harper). In the 1996 Olypmics, the dwomen played to a sold out crowd of75,000 people in Athens, Georgia. The 2011 Womens World Cup was watched 24.2 million people from Japan and the United States (Matheson and Congdon-Hohman). So if there is million of viewers during the most iconic times, why is there such a dip between these two events? The answer may lie into how the media broadcast women sports and even soccer. If big networks like ESPN doesn’t have coverage for average league games, what is the quality of the broadcast compare to men’s sports. It also may be how women are sexualized on television. “Networks even choose different shots and angles for at least female beach volleyball players and track and field athletes exploiting their bodies” (Scheadler, Wagstaff). Even the language commentators use or don’t to describe women: fast, lean, but stay clear to strong and aggressive. How does this reflect to other women culturally in other Countries. Many might find that being strong and aggressive is admirable trait that could assist in strengthening personal characteristics. References LeFeuvre, A. D., Stephenson, E. F., & Walcott, S. M. (2013). Football Frenzy: The Effect of the 2011 World Cup on Women's Professional Soccer League Attendance. Journal of Sports Economics, 14(4), 440-448. The girls of summer. (2000). Women’s Sports & Fitness (10996079), 3(7), 64 Harper, A. (2018). Separated by geography, joined in soccer: a comparative analysis of the development of soccer in the USA and Australia. International Sports Studies, 40(2), 4–18 Bredtmann, Julia, et al. The Eff Ect of Gender Equality on International Soccer Performance . 2014, pdfs.semanticscholar.org/cb0f/4add699966edc636e102f5693be7881f7226.pdf.
