The '99 women's World Cup team: Why the appeal?

I watched parts of five or six matches but wasn't strong enough to watch any of them in full. I fell asleep twice in yesterday's match, missing the 2-2 tying goal by Japan.
I agree, though, that it's stupid to think nobody "gives a rat's ass" about it. Lots care and good for them.
And when you give away free tickets (any number of them) it's interesting to see if anybody gobbles them up. Lots of sports programs or other event promoters use the "free tickets" avenue and still nobody chooses to take them.
Wasn't the case with World Cup soccer. You couldn't find people turning those things down.

 

WWC final gets 8.6 overnight rating. MLB All-Star Game drew a 7.9. I don't think it's an indicator of a groundswell for a professional league -- if it were, we'd have the National Gymnastics Association -- but the coverage of the event was neither forced nor overblown.

 

their looks were not 'the only reason.' these women had game. but 'cute' females athletes bring out the mouth-breathing male viewer. and gets little/teenaged girls to see that you can be a soccer star and not be considered too 'butch' for boys.

 

Woah. Let's slow down here. First of all, you're comparing a meaningless Tuesday night exhibition game to a world championship that occurs, what? Every four years?

Second, I'm not saying that nobody cares. Obviously there's some interest. I'm saying that it seems awfully forced and overblown to start putting the '99 World Cup team into a category with the '27 Yankees and the '85 Bears as one of the most revered American sports teams of all time. I mean, people were comparing them with the 1980 Olympic hockey team. People were asking, "Where were you when ..." questions about Chastain's goal. That is absolute lunacy.

There is a huge middle ground between nobody cares and, "Miracle on the Pitch!!!ELEVENTY!!!111"

Again, you don't have to give me the ratings. I know that the games draw. I know that people watch.

I just don't understand why or how it happened. I think a big part of it, at least this year, is ESPN. It drove interest in the men's World Cup a year or two ago and it drove interest of the women's Cup this year. They are very good at setting viewing agendas.

 

Dick, all those categories are imaginary. Why does it matter if some people file their categories differently than you file yours?

 

I don't think I understand the question.

 

91,000 fans were there that day. Most of them arrived before Chastain took her jersey off.

Try again.

 

Well, I didn't see or hear a lot of those comparisons to the '27 Yankees or Miracle on Ice, so I can't speak to those other than to say the source of that idiocy would come from the fact that ESPN overdoes everything ESPN does. Also, the All-Star Game might be meaningless to you, but it's a traditional sports milepost, and I think as a reference point to this event that you're saying is over-covered, it's definitely an interesting and valid comparison.

I don't believe I said nobody cares, I don't believe I was making the MIRACLE ON THE PITCH comparisons, I just said the numbers indicate that there was a fairly large amount of interest in the game and the coverage of the event was warranted.

 

I was covering a Diamondbacks game in '99 when the WWC final was going on. When that game went to penalties, everyone in the press box stepped to the back to watch the PKs. Kinda crazy. Hardly anyone was paying attention to the baseball game.

 

I know a test pilot in the Army who received free tickets to the final, and went out of curiosity. He'd never been to a soccer game in his life.

 

You think the '27 Yankees belong in an imaginary category marked "Greatest American Sports Team of All Time." Someone else - maybe a 12-year-old girl at the time of the 1999 World Cup - thinks the '99 USWNT belongs in the same category.

Why does it matter to you where they land - since both those entries are completely subjective, and the categories themselves are entirely hypothetical?

 

Yesterday's match drew more viewers than the clinching game of the Stanley Cup Finals and beat the average number of viewers for the 2010 World Series. And that's despite the disadvantage of being on ESPN as opposed to broadcast networks and doesn't include ratings from Galavision.

I think at this point there's enough evidence to say soccer has knocked hockey out of the Big Four when it comes to televised American sports.