There are a lot of people who truly believe that women make more money for soccer than men.
Yet every attempt to launch a pro women's soccer league has failed while MLS is still hanging on... though MLS has been reliant mainly on continuously adding expansion teams to keep a steady stream of fees coming in and on the stadium-building/municipal extortion racket. Now, is it true that the women's team draws more attention than the national men's team? Yes, perhaps... but here's the thing: the U.S. teams are not the only ones in FIFA. The rest of the world, by and large, does not care about women's sport. (Basketball might be a partial exception. Don't ask me why.) They have no equivalent of Title IX. America is head and shoulders above the rest of the world in women's soccer. But men's soccer ("football"), every country in the world plays it. The U.S. ranks pretty low compared to Brazil, Mexico and most of Europe, the countries that contribute most of the money to the World Cup. (Professionally, the Premier League in England is far beyond MLS—to the point where it has a U.S. TV contract and followings here in America, probably more than even MLS does.) So the women's team is basically drawing from its own fanbase, while if the U.S. men's team were to by some freak chance win the World Cup, they'd be winning money contributed by other countries where "football" is sport Numero Uno.
You mentioned basketball. As you might know, the WNBA is sponsored by the NBA. Without the support of the NBA, the WNBA would not exist.
Periodically, some of the WNBA players complain about making a fraction of what the men in the NBA make.
The reality is they should be lucky they're making anything in the States. I hear that overseas women's leagues are more viable. But in the U.S. just about nobody wants to watch them play professionally.
I've frequented various basketball forums where the subject of lack of interest in women's basketball has cropped up. I've suggested they not wear baggy pants and cover themselves with tattoos which is not appealing to many men. I've suggested they wear volleyball-type uniforms.
Another problem rarely mentioned is that many female pro athletes are lesbians. Men don't want to watch bulldykes.
Which is why Martina Navratilova never gained the male attraction of other female players like Ann Kournikova who was not nearly as good as Navratilova but looked a helluva a lot more attractive.
Naturally, I've been called a sexist, and I just don't understand how great women's baskeball is. Sorry, if it's so great, why don't more women watch them play?
The facts are most women would rather watch home and garden, cooking, or game shows over watching persons of their own sex play sports.
I get really irritated
when people demand men watch women play sports. Sorry, I'd rather watch men play. I'll watch women's golf and tennis every now and then. That's about it.
If feminists are upset about people not watching women play, then they can agitate for women to stop watching what they currently view and start watching women play.
