Successful doubleheader highlights need for more MLS, WUSA teamwork .

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Sunday, May 13, 2001) -- Last night, 36,528 fans showed up at RFK Stadium to see a doubleheader featuring a Major League Soccer match between D.C. United and the San Jose Earthquakes, and a Women’s United Soccer Association contest with the Washington Freedom taking on the Boston Breakers.

By any yardstick, except for the on-field failures of the home teams -- United lost and the Freedom was tied, both on goals in injury time -- this first joint date played by MLS and WUSA teams was a resounding success. Yet, other than another twinbill played by the two Washington franchises on June 30, there are no other doubleheaders scheduled despite the fact that the 12-team MLS and eight-club WUSA share four markets -- Washington, Boston, New York and San Jose.

While both MLS and the WUSA say politically correct things about one another -- how they wish each other only the best, and that soccer profits if both succeed -- their level of real cooperation is spotty at best. In fact, both sides seem to have a core of fans, executives and even players who hope the other falls flat on his or her face. This despite the fact what happened yesterday in the Nation’s Capital actually proves that both sides can help one another if the situation is handled well.

To see how and why there is not exactly a deep reservoir of good feeling between the two groups, one must go back to the pre-inception days of the WUSA. A group of potential investors in women’s soccer went to MLS and hired its financial guru, Mark Abbott, to draw up a business plan for a new first-division women’s league. Reportedly, he returned with three alternative business models, one calling for MLS to operate the women’s league as a division, with the investors putting their money into MLS. The second called for a lesser, but still very close relationship, where the new women’s league would use MLS’s already established front office structure. The third option was that a new women’s league would be totally independent of MLS.

When the investors chose that option, and the WUSA was born, many in MLS were, to put it mildly, awfully annoyed. So disturbed, in fact, MLS filed its own application with the United States Soccer Federation to create its own women’s league. The WUSA answer was to sign up most of the players from the U.S. women’s World Cup team, and announce they were ready to start play with or without the sanction of U.S. Soccer.

If the WUSA operated without sanction -- an MLS entry certainly would have been approved – it would have run afoul of world governing body FIFA and its players probably have been banned from international competition. A flood of lawsuits would have been sure to follow.

Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed. MLS withdrew its application, the two sides agreed to work together to the point where in the next year or two, there is a likelihood WUSA investors will operate an MLS team (probably in Philadelphia or Atlanta) and MLS investors will run a WUSA franchise (probably in Chicago or Columbus). In addition, it was said the two leagues would do joint marketing and professional soccer would be one happy family, so to speak.

This has not happened. With few exceptions, in D.C. and to a lesser extent in San Jose, there has been no joint marketing. A much more negative development is that the two leagues are barely speaking in some markets.

Despite noble words from MLS commissioner Don Garber and WUSA director of operations Tony DiCicco about growing the sport together, there clearly exists in both camps the deep-seated belief that the two are trying to attract a divergent audience that must be attracted in much different ways.

For example, at a WUSA pre-season marketing session, said one high-level WUSA staffer at the meeting, the consensus was there was probably little to be gained by the WUSA going after the MLS fan base. This, coupled with a myriad of logistical problems on both sides, has served to limit joint ventures.

That seems a shame. It was clear last night that the two teams do draw from dissimilar fan bases. The crowd on hand for the women’s match kickoff was decidedly younger and more female than found at a United match. Likewise, the crowd arriving later for the United match was more male, and more ethnic, than would be expected at a WUSA game.

The most heartening sign was that by the middle of the second half of the Freedom match, the United fan club drums were beating for the women, and fans were jumping as they do at MLS matches. Many fans might have come to cheer on Marco Etcheverry, but they got caught up cheering for Mia Hamm and Siri Mullinix. Likewise, 45 minutes later, many of the pre-teen girls were cheering for Bobby Convey and Jamie Moreno.

The turnstile count at halftime of the WUSA match was 21,682. The total attendance for the doubleheaders was 36528.

As D.C. United and the Earthquakes participated in their warmups, several thousand fans filed out of the stadium, mostly families with young children or young girls’ teams, but also some adult males who said they came to see the women play and had no interest in the men’s match.

At halftime of the United match, many more left. Many of the United fans who came early and saw the Freedom match left saying they would be back to see the women play again. Likewise, many who came to see the Freedom said they found the atmosphere in RFK during the men’s match "exciting" and they might return to see United play again.

From any marketing perspective, the day was a great success for both United and the Freedom, and for soccer in general. It’s a shame that more executives from both leagues were not in attendance and walking the aisles talking with fans. They might have learned a lot.

Senior correspondent Robert Wagman's "It Seems To Me . . . " appears regularly on SoccerTimes. He can be e-mailed at bobwagman@soccertimes.com..