The Way I See It
DID you notice the attendance figure for yesterday's Women's World Cup game between the U.S. and Nigeria? World Cup puts
women in spotlight65,080.
And it's the second straight sellout for the American squad.
Think about it.
This is soccer in Chicago. Women are playing it. People are packing the joint to see them. The players are becoming household names.
Hey, excuse me, am I in the right country?
Eight years ago when this American team won the World Cup, hardly anyone cared.
In fact, back then, you could still find a pretty lively discussion going in the corner pub over whether or not women should even be playing soccer.
The incredible visibility of this women's team represents a marketing coup.
Somebody finally realized that for the sport to sell, winning would not be enough.
This is soccer, after all. A topic banned from discussion by some nationally syndicated sports talk show hosts.
A sport with "no offense."
ABC's bigwigs, who announced plans last year to televise all 32 World Cup games on ABC, ESPN or ESPN2, had to get creative or lose a bundle.
So they introduced these players - these American women - as living, breathing individuals with whom anyone could identify. Then they carefully developed them into larger-than-life personalities, in the same fashion that Michael Jordan, John Elway, Wayne Gretzky and Mark McGwire gained godlike status.
Case in point: the Mia Hamm vs. Jordan commercial.
"Anything you can do, I can do better."
Oh, yeah, baby. Believe it.
SUDDENLY, we're seeing the athletic movements of women soccer players in dramatic slo-mo across our TV screens. The background music, the special effects, the narration. It has all helped to elevate the perception of these women in the same way it created the image of the male superstar.
Goddesses of sport? Yep. A startling new image.
And why not? We've been creating gods of sport for years. Not all of them deserve the adulation they derive from their artificial packaging .
So, I'm glad that Hamm, Julie Foudy, Kristine Lilly, Tiffeny Milbrett and Michelle Akers are establishing themselves in our American sports culture.
The culture needed a little shakeup.
The soccer women are a lot more willing to embrace their public and accommodate the demands of the media than the gold medal women's hockey team was after the Winter Olympics in Japan.
The hockey players were media innocents, dragged into the spotlight. They had not been prepped to become America's darlings and they scurried for cover as soon as they landed in the islands en route home.
I think the popularity of the soccer women will not only endure, but it will help make paying to watch women's sports trendier.
That includes the glitzy WNBA, which needs more than just the NBA's backing to flourish and become an American staple.
After Brendyn Agbayani, younger brother of Mets rookie Benny, scored four TDs and threw for another in the Hawaii Hammerheads' victory against the Rocky Mountain Thunder last weekend, head coach Guy Benjamin stood in front of Agbayani's locker and smiled.
"Benny who?" he said.
By the way, brother Benny's bat has been very quiet over the past seven days in which he has gone 1-for-13 (.077). But his overall average is still a healthy .344 (31-for-90).
Pat Bigold has covered sports for daily newspapers
in Hawaii and Massachusetts since 1978.
