Getting tuned in to women's soccer

The preliminary television figures have begun to trickle in, and they tell an astounding story. Over 40 million American viewers watched last Sunday's Women's World Cup final between the US and China - and if they'd known Brandi Chastain was going to celebrate her match-winning penalty kick by taking her shirt off, the audience would no doubt have been even bigger than that.

The women's final at the Rose Bowl, which drew a live gate of 90,185, was watched on TV by more Americans than tuned in to the NBA finals and more than watched Major League Baseball's All-Star Game from Boston's Fenway Park on Tuesday night. The peak 18.8 Nielsen rating, in fact, more than doubled the previous high for a televised soccer match in this country, the 1994 World Cup match between the United Sates and Brazil, which registered 9.3.

The staggering success of the tournament gives pause on at least two counts. First, it suggests that the women's game may be with us to stay. And second, it forces one to contemplate what the audiences might be like if the United States men were ever able to viably compete on the world's soccer stage.

Although the sport is widely played by both boys and girls in the United States, neither the women's game nor the American women's team had exactly captured the imagination of the public in anything approaching the hysteria produced by the tournament just concluded.

When the US team returned from China after winning the first Women's World Cup eight years ago, several of them recalled, no one was waiting at the airport save their close friends and relatives. Two days before this year's final, 2,000 people - more, recalled defender Joy Fawcett, than watched many World Cup games in China back in 1991 - turned out to watch an unannounced US training session in Pomona.

The morning after Saturday's shootout win over China, the team was paraded through the streets of Disneyland, that afternoon they were feted at the Los Angeles Civic Centre, and the players remain in hot demand for appearances on every talk show in the country. Commercial opportunities beckon, and, of course, an invitation to a White House reception can't be far behind.

In this year's final the Chinese defended in numbers. Only after Michelle Akers, who had been an imposing presence at midfield all afternoon, departed after 90 minutes did China open up the attack, and minutes into the first period of extra time, they had the day's best scoring chance when Fan Yunjie beat US keeper Briana Scurry for an almost certain goal, only to have Kristine Lilly clear off the line.

After extra-time failed to produce a Golden Goal, the issue went to penalties. Contemplating the possibility of this moment earlier, Scurry said: "If you save one penalty, you're a hero," she had said. "If you save two, they build a monument to you in your hometown."

The monument will have to wait, but Scurry earned her hero's stripes on the second kick she faced, diving to her left to deflect a shot off the boot of China's Liu Ying. When everyone else held their nerve, it was left to Chastain to settle the issue. The ball had barely settled into the net when she whipped off her jersey and stood there clad - from the waist up, anyway - only in her black sports bra. The Nike garment, by the way, goes on sale this week at $40 a go.

Going into this tournament, forward Mia Hamm was the most - no, the only - recognisable American player. Having starred in two commercials on her own and in another with Michael Jordan, Hamm has for some years served as the standard-bearer for the sport, but while her own World Cup was relatively quiet the visibility of her team-mates had taken a quantum leap even before Chastain did her impromptu striptease.

The image of the American players as wholesome, sport-for-the-fun-of-it girls-next-door may not long endure. That they seemed so different from greedy and egotistical modern-day sporting figures seemed to be one of the US women's more endearing qualities, but unless one badly misses one's guess, they will have their hands out before the month is gone.

According to the terms of their contract with US Soccer, the American women were promised a $250,000 bonus, or $12,500 per player, for winning the 1999 World Cup. When that agreement was reached, no one, including the players themselves, could possibly have anticipated the success of this year's tournament, but consider that the organisers probably made three times that amount from the Rose Bowl car parks alone last Saturday, the $250,000 figure now seems fairly paltry.

There will also be some grousing in the ranks about the pay scale, which ranges from the high end for Alpha females like Hamm to downright penurious for younger substitutes. The $50,000 per annum the US Federation pays a nanny to mind the three offspring of Fawcett and fellow defender Carla Overbeck, for instance, is more than the yearly wage of some less prominent (but no less gifted) players.

This picture could alter dramatically in the near future. Although the next Women's World Cup will be played in 2003 in Australia, no one in his (or her) right mind is anticipating anything approaching the staggering numbers produced by this year's tournament. On the other hand, giddy soccer officials are already at work plotting the formation of a Women's Professional League, which would begin play in the United States following next year's Olympics in Australia.

Given what happened here over the past few weeks, you have to like its chances. Unlike Major League Soccer, which used USA '94 as its springboard, the women's league would have the stage all to themselves. Whereas MLS isn't even among the 10 best leagues in the world, a US-based women's league wouldn't have to compete with the Premier League, the Bundesliga or with Serie A for players. An American-based league would not only divide up the already-popular US women, but could probably sign the best international stars such as Sissi of Brazil and Gao Hong and Sun Wen of China.

People who know, including one MLS owner I spoke with two days ago, make the formation of a women's league more likely than not. Ironically, some of the very women who made this all possible may not be around to reap its benefits. Akers, the lone surviving charter member of the US' first, experimental women's team back in 1985, is 33 and suffers from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Chastain, Fawcett and Overbeck are all 31. Last Saturday at the Rose Bowl may have been the crowning moment of glory for the US women, but for some of them it may also have been their last hurrah.