The FIFA Women’s World Cup began on Monday, and that means it’s time for another group of sports owners to start planning for yet another women’s soccer league in the hope that “major league” women’s soccer will gain a following in America. With the founding of a new group, Women’s Soccer LLC, the question that needs to be answered is simple: Can the new league succeed in getting consumers interested in a once-failed product?

The latest incarnation of a women’s soccer league will start in 2009 after two major international events: the World Cup, which is taking place in China, and next year’s Beijing Summer Olympics, which will be used as a springboard to market the entity. The new league plans to place franchises in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New Jersey/New York, St. Louis, and Washington. Women’s Soccer LLC also will become a business partner of MLS’s Soccer United Marketing, which means MLS will attempt to get its business partners interested in the women’s game. It has lined up one heavy hitter, Phil Anschutz — who is already the owner of MLS’s Los Angeles Galaxy — to own the Los Angeles franchise and give the fledgling league credibility.

The new women’s league claims it has done its homework and has learned some lessons from the failed Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA), an entity which lasted all of three seasons, from 2001 through 2003.

The WUSA’s goal was to capitalize on fan interest in women’s soccer after the U.S. Women’s National Soccer team won the 1999 World Cup. The league was put together in late 1999 and early 2000 with the intentions of playing in 2001. Players from that championship team, including Brandi Chastain, Julie Foudy, and Mia Hamm all had a stake in the league, as they had part ownerships in various franchises.

The WUSA was designed to become the first women’s league that would be successful without help from an established entity such as the NBA, which established the WNBA and started play in 1996. The WUSA had solid backing from the cable TV industry, which should have insured its financial health. John Hendricks, the founder and chairman of Discovery Communications and the creator of the Discovery Channel, was the chief moving force behind the WUSA’s cable TV security. The league received about $40 million from the partners for start-up costs.

“The Women’s World Cup players have demonstrated enormous drawing power,” Hendricks said in a February 2000 news conference. “The consensus was that the ideal time to consider the launch of the league would be after the 1999 World Cup. We think this is an exciting time. We think we have the right ingredients.”

The WUSA awarded its first franchise to Atlanta and signed TV deals with ESPN, Turner Sports, and PAX Net. Other cities, including Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, joined as charter franchises. The league was unable to work out arrangements to play in Orlando and moved that franchise to North Carolina where the team played in Chapel Hill at the UNC–Chapel Hill campus.

But the league floundered in its first season. The WUSA could not attract an audience to fill the stands or watch games on TV, and blew through its initial $40 million payment from its cable partners in one season — Hendricks had budgeted the money to last five seasons. In 2003, players took salary cuts of up to 30% in an effort to stop the financial hemorrhaging and keep the league going. But by September 15, Hendricks had thrown in the towel.

The WUSA was not done yet. There were two WUSA festivals in 2004, which were designed to keep the league in the minds of cable TV executives and potential marketing partners with the hopes of reviving it in some form. The Washington Freedoms franchise never folded, and the team ended up in the W-League, a women’s soccer development league. But the WUSA’s 2004 festivals failed, and by December of that year, a new group called the Women’s Soccer Initiative was formed with the intention of putting together a new women’s soccer league by 2007.

Women’s Soccer LLC will undoubtedly get a boost from this year’s Women’s World Cup and Olympics. But will it be enough to capture consumer interest in women’s soccer? History suggests no. Women’s sports have been struggling on the professional level for years in America. A planned woman’s hockey league, built on the gold medal success of the women’s 1998 Olympic hockey team, never got off the ground. There is the Women’s Professional Football League, but the only thing pro about it is the designation “professional” in the league’s name. Women’s college basketball has pockets of great interest, including Connecticut and New Jersey, but neither the WNBA (which has been a financial drain on the National Basketball Association) nor the defunct American Basketball League has resonated among sports consumers, whether it is at the arena or in front of television sets.

American sports customers are just not interested in women’s professional sports for some reason. Corporations don’t buy huge blocks of club seats and luxury boxes for professional women’s sports and fans don’t watch it on TV in big numbers. It is a massive problem for promoters of professional women’s sports leagues.

But there should be some interest. The United States Soccer Federation claims there are 3.2 million players registered with the U. S. Youth Soccer Association, and another 4.5 million adults with the organization as parents, coaches, referees, and administrators. Another 250,000 adults are playing in soccer leagues nationally.

Based on the number of girls playing soccer on the youth level and the amount of parental involvement, there should be natural consumer interest in women’s soccer, but it has failed to materialize when it comes to the pro level. Overcoming past failures and lack of interest in big time women’s professional sports will be the major obstacles facing owners who want to build a big time woman’s soccer league.

evanjweiner@yahoo.com