Being a Role Model for Girls is the "Ghetto"

Women’s Soccer Builds a League From the Ground Up: League Forges Ahead Without TV or Big Sponsors is the headline out of the New York Times today. A good article with a few interesting things:

1) Boston Breakers will lose $1 million this season. Even a jaded MLS fan like myself is appalled and concerned by that number.

2) The tv audience is mostly men, and tv audiences are in line with MLS games.

3) How is Doug Logan still getting interviewed?

4) This:

“We need to get out of the ghetto of being a role model for girls,” said Andy Crossley, the Breakers’ director of business development. “You can’t make dads feel like they’re visiting Chuck E. Cheese’s.”

I wonder how Andy Crossley's bosses feel about him describing the appeal the Breakers have with their biggest constituency as "the ghetto." This is the second time in just over two weeks one of the males running WPS has made a comment to the media disparaging the idea that the league should be important to females. Do any of these men have a clue about how to market effectively to women? The New York Times calls and the first thing to do is slaughter little girls?

Personally, I think WPS has a unique opportunity to forge it's own path. Let's be honest, it's not like MLS has figured out how to fill the stands consistently. Maybe more than the men's side of things, WPS has an opportunity to grow as a real grassroots spectator sport. And the fact that men are watching the games on tv suggests there is a diverse audience that can be exploited on game days. But I doubt they'll be successful with thinking like Crossley's.

You know, if the point is that youth team sales don't build a fan base (something MLS seems to think it has a problem with), fine. And if the point is you want to build an authentic soccer atmosphere, good luck to you. But to me it sounds like a guy with a background in minor league baseball who just doesn't get it.