Launching a national sports franchise in an over-saturated entertainment market is one venture many seasoned PR counselors might dismiss as career suicide. The latest poster
child for sports PR gone awry is the XFL, which started its inaugural season in February with a trash-talkin' bang and went out with a limp after losing the TV ratings game and
watching its fan base dissipate over three months.
That said, the outlook is a bit rosier for the newly minted Women's United Soccer Association (WUSA). This league comes equipped with a ready-made lineup of (so far) squeaky-
clean celebrity athletes who handle limelight with grace and take their role model status as seriously as death and taxes. Oh, and they've got game. The league kicked off April
14 before a crowd of 34,000 at DC's RFK Stadium, continuing their momentum in more moderately priced (and mild-mannered) family-oriented sports entertainment than took root with
the establishment of the WNBA (Women's National Basketball Association) in 1997.
So far, PR practitioners lucky enough to land a role in this entrepreneurial venture are not regretting the move. Because while the league itself may not have any pre-existing
brand equity, its players surely do. Mia Hamm is now the most coveted female athlete endorser in the US, according to a recent study by Chicago-based Burns Celebrity Sports. (She
even has a building named after her at Nike headquarters in Beaverton, Ore.)
WUSA's most seasoned players are also seasoned media darlings, having been in the spotlight long before the US national team's 1999 World Cup victory over China at the Rose
Bowl. Thus, the new league's PR machine has hit the ground running. Just last Tuesday, defender Brandi Chastain - whose infamous sports bra unveiling at the aforementioned match
will undoubtedly go down in stunt history - made her third career appearance on "Letterman" after pitching Dave herself with a hand-written note.
Meanwhile, other WUSA players are out in droves at the grassroots level, serving as guest coaches at kids' games, hosting soccer training clinics and cheerfully participating
in community service projects in the league's eight seed markets.
"Our best calling cards are our players," says Shaun May, director of PR for the WUSA nationally. "Right now it's all about getting them out there. I think the XFL players were
unknown, which made them much harder to promote."
Hamming it Up for the Media
WUSA's media coverage has been effusive on some fronts. Lifestyle reporters have found it hard to resist feature angles such as the New York Power player who twice donated bone
marrow to save a family member; the teammate who ditched a six figure salary to play in the WUSA (where the non-negotiable pay scale is $25,000 - $85,000); and the more senior
players who seem to astutely alternate juggling small children and soccer balls on bent knees (a plug just in time for Mother's Day). But not all press overtures have scored.
Editors in charge of traditional sports round-ups - perhaps the most important targets - haven't been so gushingly exuberant about girl power.
"Truthfully, it's a crowded sports landscape and we're trying to carve out a chunk," says Jim Houghton, PR manager for the Carolina Courage in Durham. "When you're a non-
established league -- and women's professional sports is uncharted waters -- you have a lot of convincing to do [with] the mainstream sports media that you deserve coverage." The
playing field has become more crowded, to boot, as other fledgling professional women's leagues (softball, ice hockey and American football) also vie for attention.
At least women's futbol has demographics on its side. "Overall, the prognosis for soccer in America is good," says Chris Widmaier, EVP at Dan Klores Communications, New York,
the PR agency of record for Major League Soccer (MLS). (The agency also boasts the NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball among its clients.) "It's truly the sport of the new
America. When you look at the figures being released in the US 2000 census, there's a huge shift in the ethnicity of this country. We're shifting toward a population in which
soccer is the primary sport."
And the WUSA has what its male counterpart league (the MLS) does not: bragging rights to the best talent in the world, given its infusion of national dream team players,
plus an international draft that plucked 30 top players from other countries for the league.
At the core of the WUSA brand remains the cult of personality surrounding its most celebrated spokeswomen - Hamm, Chastain, Julie Foudy and Kristine Lilly among them. They
continue to embody the wholesome, family-oriented promise that the league is so readily serving up to suburban moms and dads.
"We get mail from parents thanking us [because] they don't have to explain to their kids why one player is striking another with a hockey stick, spitting on a referee or
[shouting expletives]," Houghton says. Even Johnson & Johnson, notorious for guarding its corporate brand image as fiercely as a protective parent, has deemed this new league
worthy of its support and signed on as a sponsor. WUSA also enjoys backing from cable giants.
Achilles Heels
Naturally, there are critics. As one writer for The Village Voice aptly noted: "marketing the fresh-faced-girl-next-door has... meant the closeting of lesbian athletes,
the over-promotion of some white players and the downright deification of the most traditionally feminine."
Still others have panned the WUSA's initial games as low-scoring snoozers (only nine goals were scored in the first eight games), and thus inadequate in meeting Americans'
entertainment expectations. "Although I've never heard fans come away from a tight battle between Roger Clemens and Pedro Martinez and complain when there's no scoring," Houghton
quips, suggesting fans deserve more credit.
Our favorite, however, was one Orlando Sentinel columnist's tirade against the WUSA's team names, in which he panned the Bay Area CyberRays as a name that "tries to be
hip - but even a hint of dotcom is death today." Ok, we'll have to give him that one (the team name is goofy).
Minor transgressions aside, this $64 million league launch hardly smells like a dotcom about to bottom out. It's got the substance, quality, business plan and grassroots
communication network that swaggers like a champion. And instead of the standard foosball table that comes with your average start-up, this gig delivers the real deal.
(Shaun May, 212/869-8125; Chris Widmaier, 212/685-4300; Jim Houghton, 919/573-7601)
Bring it On
The WUSA has encountered its share of retro sports media biases - and greeted them with a little saucy sparring. Colleen Cotter Brannan, director of PR for The Atlanta Beat,
recounts her team's recent efforts to convert commentators at local radio station 99X into believers. "They were admittedly not women's sports fans," and vowed, on air, not to
cover WUSA games, she says. That is, until their switchboard started lighting up with listener calls - at which point DJ Jimmy Baron challenged The Beat's top player to a round
of penalty kicks. "The deal was, if Cindy Parlow could score five penalty kicks against [Baron] the station would cover us gratuitously during the season," Brannan says.
Final score? Parlow missed the second kick during a live event as hundreds of fans looked on. Baron, in the process of diving for a ball, cracked a rib and sprained his wrist,
but, nevertheless, gloated on air for the next two weeks during morning drive time, and later rebuffed a challenge for a double-or-nothing rematch. Pundits likened the Jimmy vs.
Cindy event to the storied face-off between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs.
Following the event, The Beat ran an ad in the local paper, congratulating Baron on being "a world-class keeper," and offered the station free ticket giveaways for the season's
duration. Baron has since warmed up to the team and is now covering WUSA game highlights. Mission accomplished.
(Colleen Brannan, Atlanta Beat, 404/269-8153)