For generations, throngs of sports fans have cheered for menplaying team sports. Are they now ready to cheer for women?
The three-week-long Women's World Cup soccer tournament isunderway across the country this weekend, including two games inFoxborough today, providing women who play team sports with a hugeand rare opportunity to capture the public's attention.
Corporate sponsors and licensed manufacturers, through marketingand retail campaigns, will play key roles in determining whetherwomen will now reap some of the popular acclaim and commercialsuccess long enjoyed by men's professional sports. So far,businesses like what they see in the emerging image of women in theplucky, demanding sport of soccer, and they are promoting the cause.'I think there's no question that an event that's strictly womenathletes, that's sold over a half-million tickets, and which 1billion viewers will watch on television worldwide, has the potentialto set a new standard for women's sports,' said Dean Stoyer, whohelped design Nike's multimillion-dollar marketing campaign thatfeatures Mia Hamm, the star of the US team.While individual women competing in golf, tennis, and figureskating have struggled for years to claim some of the spotlight frommen, only the Women's National Basketball Association and the playingof the Women's World Cup in the United States have providedsignificant financial opportunities in the team sports.'For years, women athletes had been almost untouchables when itcame to things like endorsing products,' said Bob Williams, presidentof the Burns Celebrity Sports Service, a Chicago-based company thatlinks advertisers and athletes. 'In the mid-'90s there was anexplosion, but it was figure skaters like Nancy Kerrigan or tennisstars like Martina Hingis and the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena.Only now are we getting any action for team sport players, likeCheryl Swoopes in basketball and, now, in a very large way, Mia Hammin soccer.'Soccer has endured growing pains, striving to become a major sportin this country. But observers say it might be different for thewomen. For one thing, unlike the men's national team, the womenwin. They took the first Women's World Cup in 1991, the gold medalat the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, and they are favored to win theWorld Cup this year, on their home turf. (Seats are available fortoday's games at the Foxborough Stadium box office; TV coverage is at1:30 p.m. on ESPN and 4 p.m. on ESPN2.)'America likes winners and big events -- and we like beingidentified with them as a company,' said Bruce Hudson, director ofinternational sports marketing for Anheuser-Busch Companies Inc. 'Wewere the first out of the box with a commercial during the men'sWorld Cup last year that had lots of action footage, and helpedcreate an image for a group of women players who clearly have becomemore and more popular with a lot of people.'The image is becoming so popular that Mattel is selling Women'sWorld Cup Barbie dolls at prominent store displays around thecountry. Gillette Co. has clamored to position its stadium signs inprominent spots for the international television exposure. And theAllstate Insurance Co. decided to be an official sponsor of thetournament, the first time in the 67-year history of the company thatit has sponsored athletics.'We're excited about it because it clearly helps us with a targetaudience of younger women with families,' said Raleigh Ford, amarketing spokesman for Allstate.Observers say the intersection of two significant demographictrends makes the current Women's World Cup attractive tocorporations: Women and girls are participating in team sports ingreater numbers than ever, with big increases in this decade, andwomen continue to be the preeminent decision makers on retailpurchases.'What you have is what you might call the children of the Title IXgeneration causing a huge leap in participation levels by women andgirls in sports that were long the preserve of male athletes. Thequestion becomes, will that translate in the next generation, thegrandchildren of Title IX, to popularity among spectators andtelevision viewers?' said Robert Madrigal, of the University ofOregon's Warsaw Sports Marketing Center. Passed into law in 1972,Title IX mandated equitable opportunities to play sports for girlsattending schools that receive federal funds.'This Women's World Cup could be a hugely important development --especially if the US women do well -- and if the companies that weresmart enough to get involved are smart with their marketing,'Madrigal said.One measure of the importance of a sports event is whether Adidasand Nike fight over sponsorship -- and they are fighting over theWomen's World Cup. Adidas, the largest manufacturer of soccer shoesand equipment in the world, has joined 10 other companies in paying$6 million to be an official sponsor. Adidas is using the trademarksof the tournament in its advertising, along with pictures of membersof the US women's team, like Kristine Lilly.However, Nike has refused to be eclipsed, embracing the event byfinancing a national tour of the US team that began last year. Nikealso has launched the sort of marketing campaign featuring Hamm thatit once used to make Michael Jordan a national icon, even usingJordan in some of the spots with Hamm.In one TV commercial, Hamm and Jordan challenge each other in avariety of sports from sprinting to fencing while a woman's voicesings, 'Anything you can do, I can do better. . . .''We have always sold casual footwear well to women and girls, butthis is a battle for the performance footwear market, which is reallygrowing among female consumers,' Nike's Stoyer said. 'From 1991 to1998, there's been an 86 percent growth rate in the number of girlsparticipating in soccer at the high school level and a 120 percentincrease in college. We want those new customers.'We've worked with Mia since 1994, and I can tell you that if MiaHamm wants to wear it, you can be pretty sure that a lot of 14-year-old girls are going to want to wear it, too,' Stoyer said. 'Once,they wanted to be like Mike. Now, they want to be like Mia.'Hamm now appears as a spokeswoman for at least 15 companies.Other women players on the US soccer team who have garneredendorsement contracts with various companies include Briana Scurry,Brandi Chastain, Tiffeny Milbrett and Tisha Venturini.As Nike's Jordan commercials proved, such marketing not onlybenefits the company, but it helps create the image and mythology ofthe sport. Basketball was still in recovery from the drug scandalsof the 1970s and early 1980s when the Jordan commercials began toair, and they helped revitalize the NBA.Fans of women's sports are hoping for something of the same forwomen's soccer.'What's new is the sense that this has never happened for women inteam sports,' said Lucy Danzinger, editor of Women's Sports &Fitness. 'This girl gang of passionate soccer players is beingallowed to compete in a way that only men have competed before.And, well, it's about time. We're thrilled!'