WPS Suspension: Because We Need to Blame Somebody for This [Originally appeared at World Soccer Reader 1/31/2012] On its face, the idea of the time between trophy presentation and first kick being an eventful one seems like exactly what a pro sports league would want. For Women’s Professional Soccer though, not so much. Sure, there were good moments. The “where will Marta end up this time?” sweepstakes. The bold, and sometimes slightly confusing, trades. The worst-to-first roster revamp in the Bay Area. The splashy player signings. The new owners rolling in from Atlanta to Western NY to Philadelphia. But for every one of those moments came an opposite. As Philadelphia and Atlanta signed up – the latter with a brand new stadium – Los Angeles, and then St. Louis, were bowing out. Western NY rolled in in time for Chicago to suspend operations, FC Gold Pride to close up shop and the Washington Freedom to scramble looking for a new owner. That queasy feeling? It’s just part of life here. Since 2009 WPS has lived in that place. Every year the league goes tumbling off the cliff. And every year, the parachute opens. Until now. Now there is just falling. The league announced on Monday that it would suspend operations1 for the 2012 season in order to “address current issues and solidify our business in order to provide appropriate support needed to achieve the League's long-term goals.” No one knows quite how hard the landing will be. Everyone involved in WPS maintains that this is exactly what they’re calling it, a suspension. Everyone maintains that coming back in 2013 is a definite possibility, and something they’ll be working towards. No one is saying “dead,” “over,” “finished.” No one is saying “forever.” And maybe they’re right. Maybe good intentions and a year away and hard work can bring the thing back. And maybe it will come back and be bigger, faster, stronger. Maybe there’s one of those giant airbags at the bottom and in ten or 15 years we’ll look back at this moment and laugh. A blip in the league’s storied history. We’ll say, “Remember Dan Borislow? That guy was crrrrrrazzzzzy!” and then we’ll ride away in our Jetson’s-style space cars, because damn it, that is what was promised to me for the 21st century when I was in kindergarten in 1987. But for now, what do we do? Our villains were people like Ted Unkel. Hope Solo if you’re a Boston fan. Caroline Seger if you’re Abby Wambach. We can’t blame Ted Unkel for this, although really, that would be fun and kind of cathartic. Our villains now are very real. 1 http://worldsoccerreader.com/2012/01/wps-announces-it-will-suspend- operations/ Obvious villain numero uno: Dan Borislow. First, the man has some kind of bizarre Spidey-sense that alerts him to, and then automatically comments on, anything written about his team anywhere on the Internet. It started here at World Soccer Reader a year ago2, when it was nothing more than an almost endearing, although very very strange, media strategy. But it got real and weird and real weird, real quick. It became less endearing and more OMGwhatishappeningherethisisnotfunnyanymore. We put up with him because we had to, like that one weird uncle that’s always too drunk and then gets kind of mean but, like, dude’s still family. And he’s family with serious money and he’s agreed to help us pay for college. Except then we found out that in return he expected us to wash his car every weekend and really, we’re not into that. Borislow’s intentions seemed, at their core, good. He built a star-studded team in Boca Raton, corralling a good chunk of the USWNT into the green and black and white of magicJack. But then he called people working for the league “infidels.”3 He was suspended by the league and then suspended again and permanently after ignoring the previous suspension. His players filed a grievance against him. A former player likened the situation in South Florida to North Korea. And that was just the stuff we knew about. Emails presented as part of a legal filing4, in a case that’s still ongoing, revealed interactions with then-CEO Anne-Marie Eileraas and several other league officials that are disrespectful at the very least and really more of a word I cannot type here. According to the league, Borislow’s refusals to cooperate with league sponsors and vendors killed whatever goodwill existed there and made those companies incredibly wary of continuing their involvement with WPS as long as Borislow was involved. When the league threatened to terminate magicJack at the end of the 2011 season, Borislow threatened legal action. Both parties have followed through - and the league points to the ongoing court case and its financial drain as a major reason for the suspended season (Borislow disputes this idea5). Since the news that there would be no 2012 season broke, Dan Borislow has been the virtual punching bag, for fans, the league and players alike. Given what we know about him and his behavior over the past year, he’s is an obvious and certainly deserving choice. But he’s far from the only choice. 2 http://worldsoccerreader.com/2011/03/2011-wps-preview-magicjack-s- washington-freedom-%E2%80%93-can-you-hear-me-now/, 3 www.allwhitekit.com/?p=5929 4 http://www.sportsmyriad.com/2011/11/all-the-borislow-wps-legal-documents-so- far/ 5 http://espn.go.com/espnw/more-sports/7520830/suspended-wps-season- brings-uncertainty Villain that we don’t really want to be the villain but maybe we need to take the blinders off: WPS and its Board of Governors. It’s understandable that the league wouldn’t be prepared financially to take on a guy like Borislow in court. But why did it even get to this point? Six games into the 2010 season St. Louis Athletica folded after it turned out that oopsy, we don’t really have, um, money. WPS promised a more thorough vetting of investors in the future. Apparently, this only meant “can you deliver to us three canvas bags of cash with dollar signs on them by tomorrow?” Questions that were never asked but probably should have been include: “Are you a crazy person?,” “Are you generally cooperative and willing to work with others in a team environment, but also capable of working independently?,” and “Have you ever felt, do you currently feel, or do see yourself in the future feeling litigious?” Live and learn. Wait… The league’s statement cites the ongoing legal battle and the expense associated with it as one reason for the suspension, and but claims it also needs the time to “solidify our business in order to provide appropriate support needed to achieve the League's long-term goals.” Which, WHY WERE YOU NOT DOING THIS ALL ALONG? I should say, in three years following the league and two years covering it, I’ve had incredibly positive interactions with the people in both league and team front offices. I know that these are people that work incredibly hard and care a whole lot about seeing WPS succeed. I’m sure they were doing something. I’m sure we don’t know the whole story. I feel pretty confident that the claim that it was Borislow who made things difficult and/or impossible to move forward with investors and sponsors is true. But that drunken Vegas wedding took two to be a marriage. And with all the goodwill and attention the Women’s World Cup generated? I don’t want to question what anyone is doing at work, because I mostly play FIFA ’12 on my phone at work, but really? And the very public attitude of the owners that they’d rather take their ball and go home than let Dan Borislow play with it, too? Not helpful. And speaking of that attention from the Women’s World Cup…. Villain I feel kind of bad bringing up because it sucks to lose your job, and I know, my own mother fired me once: the “star” players. The ones we put up as household names after they appeared on every TV show ever in the whole world following the World Cup. You were on every TV show in the whole world and not once did you mention WPS. The question “what comes next” was asked 7,000 times. It was right there for you to say “well, we go back to our club teams in Women’s Professional Soccer, we’ve still got a month left in the season.” Instead you said “gold medal gold London medal gold medal gold London medal medal gold medal gold gold gold London gold medal.” Granted, the U.S. Soccer PR wing probably had a pretty tight leash the players and what they were supposed to say, but some of you constantly kick the ball to the other team and are still in the starting lineup, I don’t think one mention of WPS is going to get you in trouble. And if it is, well, then U.S. Soccer has some serious questions to answer too. I have nothing but respect for these players. I could never do what they do, which is why I do this. Silence can be deafening though. My beloved NY Mets used to play at Shea Stadium, sometimes referred to as “the dump.” But as any Mets fan can tell you: it may have been a dump, but it was our dump.