I just received this email from “Women Talk Sports” and realized this is an urgent matter. What can we do to help? Please read and pass this along. Girls sports need all the support they can get!
As many of you are aware, the Women’s Professional Soccer league (WPS) is under threat of not being sanctioned by the U.S. Soccer Federation (USSF) for 2012. The WPS has been given a deadline of December 5th to have secured a 6th team for the 2012 season. While this deadline could be extended again to allow for more time, the reality is that after the incredible summer of women’s soccer we all experienced, the WPS is still on the brink of folding, like its predecessor the Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA) was forced to do after three seasons.Believe it or not, all major professional men’s sports leagues have been carried to fruition (some are still being carried by the way) by investors willing to fork over millions and even billions of dollars year after year, decade after decade, to see the league survive. Without going into the historic details of the NFL, NBA, MLB and MLS, let us just tell you that if they had given up after a handful of years, they wouldn’t exist today. And yet, when a very young women’s league is struggling, a common response is that, “it’s because no one cares about women’s sports and no one ever will.”We believe that if you build it, they will come. Billie Jean King has said on more than one occasion that women’s sports need female (or male!) millionaires and billionaires to support them, just like men’s sports have been supported by diehard investors who just want to be a part of the game in some way. WNBA President Laurel Richie remarked at this September’s espnW Summit that she lived in New York for 9 years and never got one letter asking her to invest in the New York Liberty. She said, “I want to make sure that doesn’t happen anymore.”This is not a call for a charitable donation. This is a call for investment in women’s soccer and the athletes that play the game. The market has been proven to exist – case in point, the response to this summer’s Women’s World Cup, the subsequent spike in WPS game attendance, and the ongoing spike in attendance at US Women’s National Team friendlies.We are calling specifically on Ellen DeGeneres and Rachel Maddow to invest in a WPS team. Whether they both do it, one of them does it, or they buy a team together (it could happen!) – however it happens, this would not only be a fantastic investment for them but also a huge boost in the mainstream publicity of the league and of women’s soccer. Why DeGeneres and Maddow? They both showed their support of the USWNT after the World Cup this summer, inviting players onto their show and talking about the tournament on air. And in general, they are supportive of others and have fought long battles to get to the top themselves.Here’s what you can do:
- Record a video of yourself telling Ellen DeGeneres and/or Rachel Maddow why they should #SaveWPS. The video should be NO LONGER than 15 seconds.
- Upload the video to YouTube, making sure to include #SaveWPS in the title of the video.
- Tell us where your video is by posting in the comments below, tweeting at us on Twitter (@womentalksports) or post on our Facebook wall. We want to know who helped #SaveWPS.
- Use Social Media to tell everyone to watch your video, making sure to use #SaveWPS when you mention it on Twitter.
- Tell Ellen and Maddow – on Twitter: (@TheEllenShow and @Maddow) and on Facebook: Ellen, Maddow.
- Tell everyone else to do what you did. Email your friends, post on Facebook, Tweet (be sure to use the #SaveWPS hashtag), shout it down the hallways, write #SaveWPS on your forehead, write it on your car windows with a bar of soap…you get the drift.
- Tell More People. Send them to this page.
Our goal is to reach 500 #SaveWPS videos. Let’s be loud enough that we can’t be ignored. And don’t worry about your hair, it looks fine. Just make the video!
Happy Monday,
Women Talk Sports
