League in Limbo

The most important aspect of the new model is the change from a single-entity league to a franchise operation. In the old WUSA, each investor operated a team or two — Time Warner Cable, for example, ran the Carolina Courage and New York Power, and Hendricks ran the San Jose CyberRays and Washington Freedom. The owners split losses equally. Under the franchise model, danger does loom: one team can acquire more riches, creating competitive imbalance that bankrupts other teams and adds instability (see Yankees, New York, and Expos, Montreal, in baseball). But single-team ownership builds incentives to leverage local sponsors, a strategy the WUSA missed the first time. "It's really important for them to understand that soccer is a community-based sport," says sports consultant Carter. "Sure, it's nice to have national names like McDonald's on board. But it's also nice to have Joe's Service Station. You must create that local feel." DiCicco has proposed a salary cap to prevent one team from scooping up the stars.

DiCicco still has a long way to go. He has identified a group of interested potential owners — including old hands Hendricks, cable baron Amos Hostetter and Cox chairman Jim Kennedy — but none have made any commitments. Nor have any advertisers. McDonald's, Coca-Cola, apparel maker Under Armour and Deutsche Bank sponsored WUSA exhibition festivals in Los Angeles and Minneapolis, Minn., this summer, but as McDonald's marketing executive John Lewicki puts it, "We're in wait-and-see mode."

Patience is the mantra among many WUSA boosters. "One thing I've noticed about women's sports is that the tolerance level changes," says Foudy. "If results aren't delivered right now, people are quicker to call it a failure." But at least one critic argues that the WUSA hasn't acted fast enough. Lisa Delpy Neirotti, a sports-management professor at George Washington University, says that even if the WUSA is seeking a soft relaunch next spring, it should have lined up sponsors before companies set fiscal-year ad budgets over the summer, giving the league a more solid foundation coming off the Olympic soccer gold. Says Delpy Neirotti: "I really think they missed a crucial moment."

Then again, the WUSA might need some more time; failure is fresh in the soccer fan's mind. The timing debate is a draw, but most analysts believe some scaled-back women's soccer league will eventually be a winner. With 5.6 million girls playing the sport, the market is just too big for the sidelines. And as the first members of the Title IX generation become soccer moms over the next five to 10 years, the WUSA and other women's sports leagues will have ever greater chances of success. "America will support one," Carter says of a women's league. But don't start comparing it to the NFL: "It will be pretty low on the food chain, at least for a very long time," he notes. For the 11-year-old girl who emailed Foudy after the WUSA folded, offering to hold a bake sale to save the WUSA, any league would be just fine.