Women's soccer gets a time break

Women's soccer
gets a time break

New TV deal with PAX and set Saturday schedule

By Susan Straight

   When Brandi Chastain scored the game-winning penalty kick in the 1999 Women's World Cup, 40 million television viewers and over 90,000 spectators at the Rose Bowl saw her celebratory shirt-doffing.
   It was just the sort of moment one might have expected to make women's soccer a hot new TV sport when the league later signed broadcast deals with TNT and CNN/SI.
   It didn't, for whatever interest it might have whetted among fans.
   The league's chief problem: Games were telecast on an irregular schedule on TNT and CNN/SI, which meant fans of women's soccer had to watch the paper closely to find when games were being aired.
That all changed when the Women's United Soccer Association signed a deal in mid-December with PAX TV to provide a consistent time slot for 22 nationally televised games.
   The WUSA already has the best female players in the world and a first-season fan base that has exceeded owners' expectations.
   Now it just needs to build a dedicated TV viewership drawing on its current family market. It's still aiming for the World Cup crowd that filled Giants Stadium for the Women's World Cup opener in June 1999.
   The key to establishing a TV fan base is a consistent weekly time slot—the "destination viewing" tactic used by Monday Night Football, for example.
   The deal with PAX TV allows both the WUSA and its former broadcast sponsors to gracefully exit an unsatisfactory situation.
   Air time on PAX TV replaces the four-year contract the WUSA had with TNT and CNN/SI to air 22 games per season. However, the contract was terminated "to allow the WUSA to pursue a consistent time slot for women's soccer matches," says the league. The season will begin in April.
   By wriggling out of its deal with TNT and CNN/SI, the WUSA not only sets up its viewers for habitual watching but also expands its market coverage.
   CNN/SI only reached 15 million viewers and was too small to qualify for Nielsen ratings. In contrast, PAX TV reaches 84 million homes. The only top 50 market PAX doesn't reach is Pittsburgh, according to the league.
    The WUSA games last season recorded a .4 Nielsen market share on TNT.
    Though it means giving up the nationally recognized broadcasting names of TNT and, to a lesser extent, CNN/SI for three-year-old PAX TV, the WUSA will be better positioned to establish itself as a 4-6 p.m. EST Saturday afternoon fixture in the lives of its fans, many of whom play Saturday games themselves.
    Last season's schedule included some early Saturday afternoon games on the East Coast that aired Saturday morning on the West Coast—the time during which most recreational leagues play.
    This broadcasting deal is the latest in a recent series of league changes, which included relocating the headquarters from New York to Atlanta and replacing CEO Barbara Allen, 22-year veteran of Quaker Oats, with Lynn Morgan, former general manager of Cox Enterprises' Cox Pro Sports.
    The WUSA, whose games draw an average attendance of nearly 8,300—almost 2,000 more per game than called for in the league's original business plan—has not yet added any new advertisers for the 2002 season but is hoping to add to the current line-up of Hyundai, Johnson & Johnson, Gillette for Women, ERA Max detergent, Sports Illustrated, Gatorade, U.S. Youth Soccer, AFLAC, Select Sport, Kwik Goal and Official Sports International.
    Major League Soccer, the men's equivalent of the WUSA, has an advertising strategy geared towards die-hard adult soccer fans—especially the intensely loyal Hispanic market.
    El Salvadoran fans, for example, waving blue-and-white flags in support of fellow countryman Raul Diaz Arce, have often outnumbered DC United fans on their home turf.
   For this reason, much of the MLS advertising is bilingual, including print ads and those on radio, TV and its web site. Sponsors of the six-year-old men's league include Budweiser, Valvoline/Pepsi and Irish Spring.
    The WUSA has one thing the MLS doesn't, and that's the ability to promote itself through its backers, which include Cox Enterprises, Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications and Comcast, as well as two individuals, John Hendricks and Amos Hostetter.
    Although the ad budgets for both the WUSA and the MLS have not been finalized for 2002, the WUSA can get greater visibility by spending less money, due to the lucrative TV spots on its cable sponsors' stations.
    Other advertising gimmicks for the WUSA have included inserting fliers in Cox Communications employees' paychecks. This was successful in Atlanta last year, and the league hopes to expand the practice to the other media employees in WUSA markets.
    The WUSA may still be making inroads in a professional sport that is comparatively new to the American scene, but based on fan count at least, it's had a successful first season. Given that a standard time slot and station are essential to building a TV audience, it is poised to make some significant gains in this area as well.

-Susan Straight is a Washington writer and a serious soccer player.

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