W-League seeks developmental pact with WUSA (or WMLS)
The planned start next year of a Division I professional women’s league will alter how the W-League goes about its business, but its position on a transforming landscape is anybody’s guess.
United Soccer Leagues Commissioner Francisco Marcos, whose organization includes the two-tiered W-League, has met several times with officials from the Women’s United Soccer Association about playing a developmental role for Discovery Communications chairman John S. Hendricks’ proposed outfit.
Marcos also has been in contact with Major League Soccer, which has an affiliation with the USL’s A-League, about its plans – yet to be revealed – for a women’s league.
The W-League would like to be the minor league for whichever group is approved this summer by U.S. Soccer. WUSA, the front-runner to get the nod, has similar ideas.
The details haven’t been worked out, and Marcos isn’t about to commit until he’s seen what MLS wants to do.
“Obviously, a lot of things are up in the air,” he said, “and I suspect they’ll be up in the air until [WUSA] sort themselves out completely, where they want to go. …
“They have asked us for more of a – I won’t say a commitment. They first asked for an exclusive negotiating period, which we didn’t think was fair because we need to know more about what they’re going to do, what MLS is going do, before we commit.”
Marcos sees the 16-team W-1 League as ideal to serve as affiliates to First Division clubs, and also is interested in working with a top league on stadium-development issues and marketing and sponsorship.
USL already has seen one executive head to WUSA – Joe Cummings, general manager of three Massachusetts teams (including the W-League’s Boston Renegades), moved to WUSA’s club in Boston – and Marcos indicated others in his league are interested in being involved, with some teams curious about possibly making the jump to Division I.
STARTING POINT. WUSA has sent to Marcos what its acting commissioner, Tony DiCicco, calls a proposal; Marcos says it is “really just a preliminary draft … a starting point of discussions.”
Talks between them have been going on since January, DiCicco said.
“We think it makes sense to have affiliates with a situation not totally unlike Major League Baseball and its Triple-A affiliates …,” said the former U.S. women’s team coach, who also is seeking a developmental partnership with the West Coast-based Women’s Professional Soccer League. “There are teams with history, who have done well, and we want to use what they’ve learned, and we want to include them rather than exploit them.”
Says Marcos: “We can be a one-stop shop for all their development needs, so to speak. In turn, they could be our godparents. Not our parents – we don’t want them as owner of our teams.
“They can control our players – that’s not an issue. They can have the rights to our players, directly or indirectly, obviously at cost.”
Details of any venture, which may not be finalized until fall, will determine the W-League’s future. Cummings acknowledged the possibility of the Renegades stepping into Boston’s WUSA slot, and Marcos said the USL’s Atlanta ownership would like to work with the planned WUSA team in Atlanta.
WESTERN EXPANSION. The W-1 League, which plans an expansion to the Pacific Coast next year, could see its size altered depending on how an agreement with a top-level league is structured; teams also could move to avoid market conflicts.
“We need to dig out if we have to move franchises, merge them, whether some of our guys might be part of somebody’s deal, in either league, in some of the overlapping markets,” Marcos explained. “Either way, we don’t plan on losing out, in the sense that we’ll be better off by the existence of [a Division I] league.”
“Either way, I think we’ll be more visible, and there will be more opportunities for players who didn’t consider playing for us all that seriously [before]. That will change drastically.”
by Soccer America senior editor Scott French