The Bay Area entry in the Women’s United Soccer Association is negotiating to play its 2001 season at Spartan Stadium in San Jose. Spartan is the home of San Jose State University and the San Jose Earthquakes of MLS. Spartan Stadium officials say the final agreement for the women’s professional soccer team to play at Spartan will require a “waiver of blackout dates” by MLS, since the Earthquakes have one year remaining on their contract at the stadium. Both the Bay Area’s WUSA team and the Earthquakes open their seasons next spring. “The WUSA as a league, and the Bay Area team in particular, look forward to implementing the cooperative agreement by making Spartan Stadium the nation’s professional soccer showcase,” said Marlene Bjornsrud, general manager of the WUSA’s Bay Area team. The WUSA’s 21-game regular season will run from mid-April through August, and each of the league’s eight teams will play 10 or 11 home games. Bjornsrud said she would like to schedule two to three home games as doubleheaders with the Earthquakes. Ideally those games would be against cities in which the WUSA and MLS share markets: Boston, New York or Washington. “Those twin-team rivalries present great opportunities to cross-promote both leagues and would be exciting and attractive matchups for fans,” Bjornsrud said. Lawler named VP The league appointed Ellen Lawler to the position of vice president of advertising and promotion. In this capacity, Lawler will be responsible for overseeing the WUSA’s brand identity and marketing communications including national television and print advertising, as well as all promotional programs. Prior to joining the WUSA, Lawler worked for the Sara Lee Corporation as Senior Manager of Advertising for its Coach subsidiary. At Coach, Lawler helped develop global advertising campaigns to support the core brand’s repositioning as well as all licensees advertising efforts. She also oversaw the company’s external advertising agency. Before Coach, Lawler worked for Champion Products as the Senior Manager of Creative Services. In that role she worked on developing communication strategies, and advertising and promotional campaigns to support the brand’s Olympic, NBA, MLB and NFL affiliations. She also supervised the company’s external advertising and public relation agencies. For seven years (1988-95), Lawler worked at Madison Square Garden Network in several capacities. From 1990-1995 she was the Marketing Director, responsible for developing and implementing marketing, advertising and promotional strategies for MSG Network. Lawler also supervised MSG’s internal creative services & external advertising agency. Lawler served as MSG’s Promotions Manager from 1988-1990, developing and administering all promotional plans which, during her tenure, went from two promotions per year to twenty.