The WUSA (Women's United Soccer Association) announced today that they are suspending operations.
I heard the news on my way home and felt a little guilty, because I never made it to any Freedom games this year.
Now the price of my seat and a hot dog wasn't going to stand between the league and insolvency, I know. But as I mentioned in a previous entry, I feel very strongly about pro women's sports.
I was musing over some of the differences between the men's and women's games I attend. The difference really isn't the actual game...the women don't play the exact same game the men do, but it doesn't make it less competative or less exciting.
One of the big differences I do see is that the women's games are for families, and the men's games are for businesses. I've seen this going to the Washington Capitals and Mystics games, the two teams I see most often in person.
My parents have had season tickets to the Caps since the first season, 1974. We had great seats, right behind the players' bench, and most of the other seats in the section were also individual season ticket holders. As the ticket prices rose, though, the seatholders changed...fewer friends and families, more "corporate" seats.
We knew the seats right behind ours were owned by a company, because most of the time the people using the seats mentioned it at some point during their constant non-hockey conversation: "Awesome seats, dude. How'd you get 'em?"
"My roommate's sister's boss got them from a contractor. Do you know anything about hockey?"
"No, but I played rugby once in high school. That gives me enough experience to loudly comment on the play between beers and planning Friday's happy hour."
"If you mispronounce number 7's name it sounds funny. I'll repeat that a few million times."
Ooops, sorry. I obviously have another sports axe to grind there.
Anyway, when the Caps moved downtown to the MCI Center, even my empty-nest parents could no longer afford the "good" seats and we moved up to the nosebleeds. Even up there we hear a lot to suggest that the people in the seats received the tickets via work, either as a reward from their employer or as a gift from someone with whom they were doing business.
A couple of times I have had the luxury of seeing a game from a Luxury Suite at MCI. How? A friend of mine lives next door to a woman who handles the tickets for a Big Company. When Big Company isn't entertaining clients or rewarding employees, she can do whatever she wants with the tickets. She's not a hockey fan, but my friend is, so when she remembers and he can go he gives me a call.
Now I do sometimes buy products from Big Company, but not because I've gotten to sit in their luxury suite. I don't know how the IRS handles such business expenses (not as loosely as they used to, I don't think), but I still wonder how Big Company is justifying the cost.
Another thing...many nights, particularly on, say, a Wednesday when we are playing, say, Edmonton, I can look down from my nosebleed seat and see that Big Company's box is absolutely dark and empty. But that's okay for the arena, the team, and the NHL, 'cuz that box was already paid for.
In contrast, at the Mystics games most of the luxury boxes seem dark. And instead of K Street suits, most of the fans are families. Lots of kids. Lots of couples.
The most expensive seat for the Mystics? $75 for front row floor. The next highest is $35. The Caps "VIP" front row seat is $230. For both the cheapest ticket is $10, but for the Mystics the $10 seats are a third of the arena, for the Caps the $10 seats are two rows of twelve sections.
Maybe I'm just hanging out with the wrong crowd, but the ticket prices of the men's sports (and hockey is cheap, an also-ran sport here in Washington) place most of the tickets out of the range of regular families and into the hands of Big Companies. Women's sports aren't very attractive to Big Companies, making them affordable for families.
The problem is, a sports league itself is a Big Company, and apparently it takes more than the average family's $10 tickets to keep a company like the WUSA playing in the big leagues...
Posted by Nic at September 15, 2003 05:45 PM