Counting down the days to the Inaugural Match

Greetings from the league office as a very, very big day approaches!

Sunday’s Inaugural Match between the Los Angeles Sol and the Washington Freedom represents so many things: An historic moment in women’s professional sports. A reason for little girls to dream big. A chance for millions of people of every age, men and women, to watch world-class athletes in their own backyards. And the first chance for WPS to respond, in images rather than words, to the many legitimate questions and doubts about launching an enduring new league in this most challenging of economies.

In the fall of 2004 (barely a year after the end of the WUSA, the first women’s professional soccer league that had launched with big stars and so many bold expectations), I was approached by national team standout Julie Foudy about trying again. With the dedication and help of colleagues Bob Greenberg and Chris Markgraf (and, eventually, hundreds of others in the athletic and business communities), we set out on a long path to establishing a more sustainable business model that would carry on the tradition of showcasing the very best the world has to offer. And the soccer community had questions: how to succeed when the first league had failed; how to attract top athletes yet keep a responsible financial structure in place. We formed the non-profit Women’s Soccer Initiative, Inc., to meet these issues head-on. And there were a lot of collisions along the way, but we stayed true to our conviction that with the right model and the right people, women’s professional soccer would be relevant again.

When WPS officially launched in 2007, we had our core of original teams and owners set and a financial model in place, but so many hurdles remained: finalizing TV deals, stadium partnerships, sponsors, and player contracts. We had to convince all parties of our story: that women’s soccer has an audience; that the level of play is vastly improved even from 2003, the WUSA’s last year. That people, given the chance to watch the very best in the world play in smaller venues with moderate ticket prices, would come. And Sunday, when three-time FIFA World Player of the Year Marta and her Sol teammates face Abby Wambach and the Freedom in a game that features four players from the 2008 Olympic gold-medal match, is truly the first step of the next phase – proving that our vision can thrive and endure.

Thanks to Fox Soccer Channel and Fox Sports Net, we have a chance to share the stories of our remarkable athletes, and of the game’s progression to a more dynamic, creative, international sport. We will embrace the parity of rosters filled by allocation and drafts. We will aspire to steady, manageable growth that will keep our players and our game on the national sports landscape. If, in five years, we have grown to 12 franchises, claimed some of the dwindling ink in our major newspapers, made our mark in social networking and other innovative channels, doubled attendance projections to the 10,000 mark, and given rise to a new generation of stars, we will have achieved a success few would have predicted in 2004.

I don’t have the words to describe my excitement for Sunday; the pride and gratitude I have for the people who have sacrificed so much to make it possible is beyond measure. The journey truly starts here.

P.S. – Follow me on Sunday as I share my Inaugural Match experience live on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/wpscommissioner