The financial mess in St. Louis has claimed its first victim. It was announced that St. Louis Athletica of the WPS will fold, becoming the second club to fold this year in the league. Jeff Cooper, one of the financial backers in St. Louis, broke the news to the team.
A financial crisis that impacts both the Athletica and the USSF D-2 side A.C. St. Louis is at the heart of the issue. The men's side will remain afloat for the time being, as bonds were issued to meet the club's payroll.
“We looked at a few options as a league together with our Board and U.S. Soccer, but the operational hurdles and finances just didn’t work out," WPS Commissioner Tonya Antonucci said in a league statement. "In the face of a severe funding gap in St. Louis, the local ownership group is shutting down the team at this point.”
Athletica players will become free agents on June 1, and the club won't play its scheduled match this weekend against Atlanta.
What do you think of the news? Will A.C. St. Louis survive?
Share your thoughts below.
AC St Louis has played 3 home games in their entire history and is averaging over 4,000 in attendance per game. That’s not a bad start considering the circumstances. They had 4 months to put together a team before the first game and play in a league that is barely making it. I’m not sure anyone has a good idea if the St. Louis market will support a team after 7 months and 3 home games.
“We”, and later you’ll be saying “send those mexicans back”. That’s who the “we” was for that 50k game in Atlanta involving a Mexican team. They probably travelled from Nor. Caro and Tenn….something they wont do for a MLS team.
true. The women’s game is exciting. The gap between women’s leg muscles versus men’s is not as wide as men & women’s upper body development, and this is why women’s basketball is sucko. Women’s soccer is actually exciting. That orange team (ATL?) has some hot players too.
i hope not. maybe some new world league of sorts could be formed in countries where there is some interest in the woman’s game, with maybe 4 in US, 4 in Ger, and maybe 2 in Brazil and 2 in nordic countries- something different to still maintain a league. As for travel cost, teams from one country could just all travel together . I hope it doesnt fold.
yep, make no bones about it, to get KC continuing in building community support has taken alot of work. It also took years of going through 9k per game seasons. They’ll succeed….at a fair 13 or 14k, but no way KC sells out their entire season in the new stadium (18.5k). I dont think MLS should prop up St. Louis for years and years to duplicate KC, its a whole new ballgame now with Sea, Port, Van, Tfc, and Mon. St. Louis is small potatoes. In fact, the whole of Missouri is.
wow, what are you drinking? you really think st. louis can bring 30k to each game? that needs to be the new standard, and we all know portland & vancouver can deliver. St. louis is no different then any other non-coastal city in the interior of the country. I’m glad this sets St. Louis back in the MLS chase…too much overexpansion. Just add something in the Southeast to complete the map and worry about getting into copa libertadores or about building some MLS teams into brand names.
The Luis F and Jay relationship also has no future. He called me a moron. And while it may be true, it cuts just as deep.
“Guess what too I’m a Guy I just love the damn sport men or women’s it does t matter it has the same flow the same skill set…”
Amen, brother.
It’s even beyond that: there’s a lack of appreciation reflected in some of these comments for simple skill and athleticism. This “women’s sports are just boring” argument has no more merit than “college sports are just boring” or “little league is just boring”.
Hell I got interested in curling during the Vancouver Olympics because there’s obviously skill and ability and strategy involved, if you just accept it on its own terms so you can then see what it has to offer. Saying that it’s boring to watch Hope Solo (unfortunately now without a team!) reject that sure goal from (I think it was) Sky Blue in their post-season match last year, where she leaped from one side to the other of the goal and was already falling back into it, in fact, is saying it’s boring to watch quality soccer and impressive athleticism. No two ways about it.
Funny, because your comment reminds me of all the discussions I have with my neighbors and extended family members and friends and so forth when I ask if they’d like to watch a soccer match with me, and they tell me no because “soccer is boring”.
This reminds me of when I ask my girlfriend if she’d like to watch GMU’s women’s basketball team (we’re both alums & season ticket holders to the men’s team games) and she tells me no because “women’s basketball is boring”.
It makes sense my friend, I think you’d see RSL type success if a team was placed there. Some markets just work for certain sports. Albquerque can be a perfect niche market for MLS for all the reasons I said. I think a team could be highly successful there, just as a team is in Salt Lake. (Which is a smaller market, I will add)
P, you are the first guy and probably the last guy that we are going to see post about putting a team in Aluequerque.
You make some very nice points but if that city ever gets a second division club I will be pleasantly surprised.
Forget the 2nd NYC team, forget St. Louis….Albuquerque!!! Put a team in Albuquerque!!! I’m not from there, never been there, don’t know anyone from there so this is not bias. Its a top 10 fastest growing market. Over 500K people in city limits, about 900K i believe in metro area, and NO competition from other leagues….Its would allow MLS to expand into a portion of the country it is not and is perhaps the only market in that area thats viable, because Albuquerque is high in elevation and therefore does not have the 100+heat that is consistent in other major cities like Phoenix or Tucson or even Vegas. The area is also ripe with families and Hispanics, which MLS has proven to be the only 2 demographics it can truly capture.
The only way the MLS is prosper (and I hope it will), will be down to two factors.
Continue to create geographic rivalry’s such as they have with the expansion of Seattle, and now Portland and Vancouver. LA set up of two teams ground sharing is positive also. Geographic rivalry’s creates the type of atmosphere that the sport needs in this country without strong TV coverage to set itself apart from the other major sporting leagues in this country. As in Europe, local rivalry’s create great local media coverage (TV and press) and also gives players the option to move locally, while continuing to build recognition among the same supporter base. Also enables chances for regional home grown player base to remain local (benefits fans and league), which as the league develops, teams will rely on as top level player salary’s rise.
Based on this opinion, I’d love to see a team either in New York City, in a location accessible by subway (ideally in Queens which has a strong European population). It would create a rivalry with the NY Red Bulls, and also create regional rivalry’s with Philly, DC and New England (Boston). The alternative option would be to put a team in upstate New York which I think Rochester would be the ideal choice. The city has a very strong youth soccer community and already has shown that it can run a successful team at the USL level with good attendance. Rochester benefits from not having any major league sport team competing for fan base and it would draw fans from Syracuse and Buffalo also. In addition this would back up my local rivalry point, as Toronto who has a strong fan base is only 3 hours away.
Second factor is keep ticket prices low. I love the fact I can go see the New York Red Bulls for 15 dollars. If it can establish itself as the only sporting option (vs the American Football, NBA, MLB, and Ice Hockey) that is family affordable, then the fan base will grow significantly. As we all know, we often support teams throughout life based on a connection established at a young age when our parents took us to our first sports event (insert team, sport here). MLS has a great opportunity now that most professional sports are aimed at Corporations and wealthy individuals (including the headache of the secondary ticket market and ticket availability), to establish itself as the family option. However, the atmosphere at matches has to be memorable, and geographic rivalry’s allows that (as shown in Europe and other parts of the world, in football the mixing of home and away supporters creates best atmospheres of any sport). Teenagers will want to attend in groups if the atmosphere is loud and fun and this can only realistically be attained by having home and away fan support at matches.
I’d be interested to hear feedback?
I enjoy watching USSF D-2 matches. I watch about 45 a year.
women’s soccer–I enjoy watching some of the games, and if they were near where I lived in SE Mich, I’d go to a few games. I’d take my children.
St. Louis–expansion is NOT going to happen there for team #20. Anyone listening to Garber of late will know his eyes are set on NY team #2. Of course if the Mets don’t follow thru and no ownership is found, then other options open up. Regardless, St.L doesn’t sound like one of them.
I care about women’s soccer A LOT MORE than USSF-Division 2. And what we’re not supposed to have equality for women? By eliminating title IX, you want to go back to the days where only men have opportunities to play sports? I love all of these counter arguments by angry men against title IX and wanting to bash women’s soccer — perhaps you got cut from a college soccer program? Just an FYI, remember that women only make .80 on the dollar even in America so you’ll be safe for awhile longer.
If you really want to improve soccer in the US, the youth USMNT programs need to develop our talent better at a younger age and more players need to go to Europe at younger ages. We have no left back for our national team and this is pathetic in a country of over 300 million people but you can’t blame it on TItle IX. Our best male soccer players SHOULD NOT be playing in college and this is clearly part of the problem. A few more scholarships isn’t going to help the problem. Our male players are lacking technical and tactical skills that are learned by European, South American and even African players at a very young age and college soccer is just augmenting these ineptitudes.
Just look at the stupid NCAA rules in college soccer. It is not even the same game with the substitution rules and is detrimental to our male player’s development. It becomes a track meet with a soccer ball.
Do you think that Jozy Altidore’s lack of first touch is due to Title IX, or Jonathan Bornstein’s ineptitude or Gooch’s lack of tactical ability? No way! With US Soccer pumping in millions of dollars to the men’s program, our players should be better.
Let me remind you that our women’s national team is the best in the world. We just trounced Germany 4-0. In fact we are so deep that our 3rd best 11 could compete in the world cup. We are deep like Brazil on the men’s side. I hope for the day when our men’s team is this deep and nobody has to play college soccer.
The WPS was merely founded at the wrong time, in the midst of a global recession. If EPL clubs are going into administration, then WPS ones are bound to fail. There is a definitive market for women’s soccer at a semi-pro or low pro level but it should be on a regional level with the best teams meeting in the playoffs.
Funny – we fielded a men’s team here for over a decade, built a stadium for them…had some of the best attendance in WUSA with The Beat, and just built a stadium for them. Oh – and we put 50,000 people in the GA Dome last Summer…twice.
St. Louis couldn’t make it a full season without everything going to hell. Case closed. The only thing I’d expand in St. Louis is the amount of ways to bypass that crap town…
Title IX does not hold back our men’s national team success. But arguably, it has been a driving force behind our women’s national team far greater success.
USSF D-2 Soccer is unwatchable, too.
And St. Louis want an MLS team? Hahahaha they can’t even fund a WPS and USSF D-2 team. What a joke I don’t want to hear another peep out of St. Louis.
Anne, it is easy to take a shot at GSScasual but how about the fact that a lot of WOMEN won’t economically support women’s sports?
Guys like GSScasual are only part of the equation. I have seen a lot more women in crowd shots at NFL, MLB and NHL games than I do when I watch or attend some of the WPS games in my area. Even with the WNBA team in my area. If a women’s league fails it is because not enough customers wanted the product. There are a lot of women customers who are saying “nah, I’m not really interested”.
1. I care. A lot of people care. But markets are driven by economics, so obviously not enough people care.
2. I’m not the smartest guy at the sportsbar but don’t most major universities have a varsity men’s soccer program? Title IX “casualties” have usually been things like Men’s Swimming and Diving, sometimes wrestling and “fringe” sports like Men’s Field Hockey and Rugby.
I’m going to call out your proposition that Title IX holds back this nation’s national soccer team. The adverse and undesired results of it could be affecting our national progress in sports like Men’s Field Hockey and Rugby but I your link to Men’s soccer just doesn’t hold up. You know that this is one of the few places in the world where players who make it to a national team play at a university level before launching a pro career.
It’s got aboslutely nothing to do with “pc”–Coz I don’t do the ‘pc’ thing but I do try to follow other people’s logic and yours just isn’t passing my test.
I agree with the market demad principle. If not enough people want your widget than you probably need to find a new product to push or you had better be ready to bleed a lot of cash to try and incite people to purchase your product, knowing that you are going to have an uphill and most likely losing battle.
I watch it just fine.
By the way, you can substitute “American” with women and alot of people would agree with you.
Just a thought.
Another thought: You might want to back away from the second team in New York kool-aid (I assume you are talking MLS and not second division). I have yet to see anything that indicates one could be more profitable than another team in a “major” or “mid-major” market, let alone St. Louis if they could find the right Daddy Warbucks.
Honestly, I think the owners of the Silverbacks decided they could make more money in the rec league fees than they could on the actual team. Silverbacks park is always booming, even having Champions League type tourneys with darn good money on the line.
Georgia is a hotbed for soccer, think Mathis and Wolfe, but as a sports town it’s a miserable place to be. It would be nice to have a team though – I just don’t see it being supported.
I am pretty sure that FIFA is going to give them a pass. They kinda have a lot going on this summer. I don’t think that the reed alert memo is going to go much further than the desk of the director of the committe for women’s football.
That’s it! You are being such a “meanie”! I am going to email the mayor’s office in St. Louis (just after I google the info) and tell them that you have made it celar that you will not be visiting anytime soon. They will be crushed I’m sure but it is for the best. The Jay and St. Louis relationship clearly has no future.
No doubt, you are a “vet” when it comes to soccer in the ATL. They just can’t seem to get a break. Which is too bad for fans like you, Bro.
So Jay, should I just skip you and just not even bother to call you when we here on Soccer By Ives form a “Save Pro Soccer In St. Louis” non-profit and are looking for donations? What about two tickets for our fundraising Gala? Also, not sure what insurance plan you might have, but I think that I can recommend a doctor who can treat that pesky condition in a more traditional and less painful way…
Aaron and any St. Louis soccer farn, sorry about what you guys are going through. I really am.
It does look MLS knew what it was doing when it came to Cooper.
Correction, sorry… the stadium the Atlanta team is playing in will be used for Kennesaw State University events. It’s not Atlanta’s stadium per se. It’s nice though…
Seriously… I play soccer at that stadium in the rec leagues and as soon as it was built, they went away. It was so nice not having to go watch the Silverbacks on the concrete slabs for seats at Georgia Perimeter in the hood.
I don’t know if your comment was directed at me?
As far as my original post – I have nothing against St. Louis. I think, sports wise, they are some of the most knowledgeable and passionate fans around. Smart Baseball fans, they support the Blues and still actually go see the Rams… : )
I just don’t think another midwestern team could make it. I also don’t think a team in Tampa or Miami could make it. Look at the teams besides the Bucks and Dolphins in those cities… the fans are apathetic. St Louis is obviously the same about it’s D2 team.
I’m looking for tickets to the US-England and/or US-Slovenia matches in SA. Anyone looking to sell?
So what happens to women’s International soccer without title 11? I mean the last I checked the women’s us team was #1 in the world and just spanked the number 2 team Germany 4-nil. Oh and nevermind the fact that ALL of the current squad besides Christine Lilly played in collage. But that’s not important right?
Guess what too I’m a Guy I just love the damn sport men or women’s it does t matter it has the same flow the same skill set…anyone who thinks title IX should go is someone hoping our most successful international team should dissapear as well
More of the same level of (ahem!) thinking.
Just remove “women’s” from those phrases and you have the same idiotic attitude of great swaths of people in the US that all of us here moan about and recognize as ill-informed, woefully misguided and harmful to the sport. They’re as perfectly convinced as you are (have you never encountered them?!?), and their reasoning is every bit as valid as yours.
It’s a shame. That was the coolest crest in all of American soccer.
i don’t have a sexy girl staring over my shoulder but i am a girl staring at your comments. and to be honest, i agree with you–women’s soccer won’t ever make it because there are guys like you who refuse to watch. feel good about yourselves.
p.s. has anyone watched marta?
MLS teams can make it in todays marker. Teams in a WOMENS SOCCER league in USA won’t make. I don’t have a problem with womens soccer, but the current market in the united states won’t support it. sorry to the die hards.
Atlanta is an even worse pro-soccer town than St. Louis. Just saying.
it is unwatchable and no one cares. 2 down, only a few more to go until this joke is over.
I actually wrote the Georgia AD about the lack of soccer, and both he replied by saying that men’s soccer is the next men’s sport to be added. The SEC has said the same thing, I believe. The reason that it hasn’t, at least publicly, is that TItle IX would mandate that schools like UGA add two sports, one for men and one for women. There are actually three SEC schools that have men’s soccer-USC, Ky, and Vandy.
But make no mistake football will pay for the enterprise. There is no way around that fact. And that’s true at every major school, too.
Can’t believe soccer isn’t working out in the gotta have a, wanna, need a, guaranteed to be a success, town of Ol’ St. Louie!!!
You would think the 10’s of thousands of fans that are just dyyying to line up for soccer in St. Louis could’ve prevented this. Guess they had a Cardinals game to get to…
Oh, I’m sorry…I forgot…alot of guys who were on the1950 World Cup squad were from St. Louis, so they should get a team. St. Louis was also a major US city 60 years ago…things change.
Thank you, Mr. Cooper for railroading a guaranteed failure before it got past D2.
Meanwhile, Atlanta has not 1, but 2 SSS’s…1 for men, 1 for women…and St. Louis can’t get 1 built without folding a team, and taking out loans to pay the other. Quality.
sheesh, with some of these comments, you would think a sexy girl is watching over their shoulder as they type them….. (if they are, ask them to leave the room) DO YOU HONESTLY BELIEVE THERE COULD EVER BE A SUCCESSFUL WOMENS LEAGUE? honestly, im not having a go, but i may flip thru a watch a half on FSC, but you think id go to a pub and say, “turn on WPS, Sky Blue is on… Round of beers for the the lads…” NO… there are so many factors to its failure, its ridiculous… Millions of dollars out the friggin window
Hey roger, i choose success in International Soccer… I choose it instantly, i choose it without hesitation or second guessing…
it actually is.. and your in no position to talk… St louis has been whining for a team, the got it… now…riiiiight
LOL footnall
jay what do you have against stl? just look at the poll ives had up here last week about who should get the next mls team…the majority of the votes were for STL…i dont understand your hatred for St. Louis…where are you from that is so amazing??
I have to admit that I’ve never seen a WPS game, but I really don’t understand this attitude. I’m not denying that it exists, I just don’t understand it. People always use the comparison of women’s basketball, but it’s not an apt comparison. Women’s basketball is a fundamentally different game than men’s basketball. The inability of 99% of women to dunk is a serious alteration of the game dynamic.
Women’s soccer is just soccer. I’ve watched most of the USA and late-round matches from the last couple of cycles of women’s international play. To me, it’s just as entertaining. Maybe that’s not so at the club level, but that would surprise me. I don’t think there’s THAT much dropoff from the elite level.
You know what’s weird? University of Texas at Austin has a women’s soccer team with their own stadium, and NO mens soccer team. We need reverse Title IX!!! I really enjoyed the WPS last year. I could watch the LA SOL all day (and thanks to Fox replays, I often did). But the best team to watch folded…and now I find it hard to recommended watching.
PS Eliminating Title IX wont do anything to help US MNT. The only way to make serious money for someone thinking about graduating with and post-grad MBA or professional soccer, is to get the MBA or get onto the US National team. Stu Holden was only making $30k a YEAR + whatever he could get from the NATs. In other countries a nationaly recognized player like him would be earning %30k a WEEK! That’s why US Soccer doesn’t draw on 300million American player pool to build talent. The money is elsewhere.