It's bad enough that we have to suffer through countless commercials and promotional hype to attract our attention to watch soccer games.
What is worse is that we are told we actually have to like the sport because women are playing. It's as if one commits an egregious crime against humanity - or at least political correctness - to suggest in polite company that soccer is, egads, boring.
Try it out amongst your friends and see if they look at you like you are a modern-day Archie Bunker.
How can anyone speak ill of these women, especially those on Team USA? After all, these are not just any athletes. They are perfect: young, attractive, and athletic. They are more than simply athletes. They embody the American spirit and provide the nation with the most artificially created things: role models.
At least that has been the marketing spin for the last two weeks. Television viewers have been bombarded with advertisements emphasizing the wholesomeness of the women, how they play as a team even to the point, as one Nike commercial suggests, that if one player needs two dental fillings, then they all need two dental fillings.
The fact that Nike and Adidas have engaged in their tired sneaker battle during the Women's World Cup is troubling, especially considering that these two companies, through their sponsorships of high school tournaments and ''superstar'' endorsements, have done more to destroy college and professional sports by promoting individualism at the expense of teamwork.
It's gotten to the point where even members of Team USA are repeating the hype.
Goalie Briana Scurry recently told ABC's ''Nightline'' that marketers like women's soccer. ''They see a good, wholesome female athlete here,'' Scurry said. ''I mean, every one of us, you know, can be a media darling, so to speak. I mean, you know, we're good people. We're clean people. We have family values. I mean, we exemplify everything that's nice and beautiful about this country.''
Given all the good, clean fun, it's surprising that television ratings aren't better. ESPN has aired six games and averaged a 1.05 rating (800,000 households). ESPN2 has aired 20 games with an average rating of 0.53 (343,000 households). Team USA games have received the highest ratings. Thursday night's quarterfinal game against Germany on ESPN pulled a 2.19 rating, or 1.7 million households.
The US game against North Korea was the fifth highest-rated sporting event in ESPN2 history, behind the 1998 North Carolina-Duke college basketball game and three NASCAR Winston Cup races.
Let's be clear here. Soccer is a great sport, whether it's played by men or women. The problem is that soccer spinmeisters, especially those for the women's team, have used a strategy to boost their sport by knocking down other athletes. The women's World Cup, we are led to believe, is not only a great sporting event, but it also has people with morals, unlike the Neanderthals and heathens that are out drinking, doing drugs, and abusing women. No one denies that professional men's sports have tons of problems. The media tell us everyday about people such as Christian Peter or Jim Brown.
What the marketing spinmeisters don't like to talk about is the money. The Women's World Cup is a huge bargain when compared to major sports such as the NFL and the NBA. Official sponsors are paying between $1 million and $4 million, while marketing partners are paying between $500,000 and $1 million. Even the men's tournament pulls bigger dollars. Its worldwide sponsorships get as much as $50 million.
''We think we get a lot for our money,'' Katey Kennedy, sponsoring marketing manager for Hewlett-Packard Co., a WWC sponsor, recently told the Los Angeles Times. ''We get in on the ground floor of a grass-roots program, the US team is exceptionally strong and the athletes are ... good role models.''
And cheap, too.
For their part, television networks rarely, if ever, report on athletes who have transcended ''role model'' status by really doing something noble.
CNN/SI did such a report yesterday on All-Pro linebacker Derrick Brooks. The Tampa Bay Buccaneer recently took 13 inner-city kids on a field trip to Washington. The kids earned their tickets by completing their school assignments, demonstrating good behavior, and completing an essay on the Nation's Capital.
Brooks chose the winners from the Tampa Ponce De Leon Boys and Girls Club. ''I just want to provide an opportunity,'' he told CNN/SI's Nick Charles. ''Just being there for them and showing them that my interest is more than a financial interest. I have a personal interest in these kids. I visit them. I make it a point to know them. I make it a point to ask them questions about themselves. I don't just write a check and disappear.''
Brooks is one of the few athletes who welcomes the responsibility, and wants more athletes to do the same.
''We are going to be forced to come out from behind our curtain and really show the world the things that we do are good because we are being overshadowed by the negativity of all of our professions,'' Brooks said.
