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DiCicco has the answers for WUSA
Updated: Thursday April 12, 2001 9:50 PM
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Originally, I was going to do a column about the challenges and questions the Women's United Soccer Association faces, especially if it wants to thrive and not just survive. Then I ran into Tony DiCicco this week. He had answers to those questions. There might not be a better-qualified person to talk about the league, team and players. After all, he directed American players to an Olympic gold medal in 1996 and a world championship in 1999. And he probably coached against every one of the foreign stars. Today, DiCicco is one of the head honchos of the league as chief operations officer. In an interview, DiCicco addressed many of the challenges facing the fledgling league, which kicks off its inaugural season on Saturday when the Washington Freedom is host to the Bay Area CyberRays (2 p.m. on TNT). What is the league's biggest challenge? "Probably TV. I think we're going to be successful in our stadiums. I think we're going to be successful on the field. We're going to have a great product. I'm not as sure that we have gotten the word out for people to know our games are going to be on noon on Saturdays on TNT and 6 p.m. on Sundays on CNN/SI. I think we have some work to do on that.
"If we go out and do a good job and have impressive ratings, then the outlook for this league will have a much different tag than what soccer has traditionally been with the ratings." What will the quality of play be like? "I think it's going to be equivalent to a lot of the soccer we saw in the [1999 Women's] World Cup, which in some cases wasn't great and in other cases was exceptional. It's not going to be the bottom tier, but the solid international level of the final four of the World Cup." What will the fan base be like? "Boys are part of our fan base. The next generation of sports fans, there will be a lot less boys or men watching males. We're going to see a lot of crossover [males watching women]. The family is the key, core market for us. We have to hit the young boys from six to 18 and those young girls and their families. For sure, MLS wants to hit them, too. That's where there is a little bit of a crossover." Who do you think will be among the top teams? "We tried to get parity. From every indication in the preseason tournament, we accomplished that. From what I saw from the preseason tournament -- remember, some international players weren't there and some teams were testing -- I think, Washington, Atlanta, the Bay Area and New York are the teams to beat. You don't know who are going to emerge as the stars that carry their team. The other four teams are right there. Very close." How important is it to have a successful team in New York? "We're going to have an exciting team in New York. Tiffeny Milbrett just makes you hold your breath when she gets a hold of the ball. She was doing it in preseason. Here's one thing New York will have: unbelievable speed. They will be the fastest team in the league. Probably three of my four fastest players in 1999 were [Sara] Whalen, [Christie] Pearce and Milbrett. [Shannon] MacMillan was in there somewhere. I like their team. A lot of flair, a little bit of muscle, a lot of athleticism and a lot of experience. "Will they be successful? I hope so. I do think important for any league to have a product that is viewed as an exciting, good team." What sort of impact will WUSA have on MLS? "I remember something that Phil Knight of Nike said once when Reebok came in. Anywhere you saw an adult or a parent, they had a white Reebok sneaker. Knight said, 'Reebok is the best thing that ever happened to us. We have to get our stuff together here.' Obviously, MLS said in the offseason that it has to be sharper in its communications with the youth, we have to do this better and that better. They kind of got back to the year-one mentality. I think we're going to help them being there. Together, I am hopeful we will develop soccer in this country. "As I said often, I am a fan of MLS soccer. It's a good product, probably a better product than what it gets credit for. We can work together and break through some barriers that have been there for soccer for a long, long time. That's with the media, TV ratings, the opportunities to reach our fans and get them to games on a regular basis." What lessons were learned from Major League Soccer's launch? "For the most part MLS has been very open with what they learned, what they did well, what they wish they had done better. We can take a lot from them. There is a lot of positives on what they did. The No. 1 thing I tried to avoid was playing in NFL stadiums. "Let me tell you, if I knew then what I know now I may not have gone that route because it is a lot harder. It is a lot harder to create a stadium at the University of San Diego than to play at Qualcomm [Stadium]. You've got issues like neighborhoods, parking, traffic, permits, all those things at Qualcomm or Giants Stadium that are in place. Right now we would prefer to sell out at 7,500 at the University of San Diego than have 10,000 or 12,000 or even 15,000 at Qualcomm. That 7,500 sellout becomes a hot ticket." How do you assess the start-up advantages vs. MLS? "We have some advantages and some disadvantages. One of our advantages is we have the best league in the world. We have the Mia Hamm of China. We have the Brianna Scurry of Sweden. We have Julie Foudy of Germany. We have the Tiffeny Milbrett of Norway. We have that type of star power. Early on, MLS couldn't claim that. I think they had an advantage because they had that extra year. I wish we had another three months or six months. About two or three days ago I kind of shifted. This has been a dream of mine and for the next nine months I had been dreading the inaugural game. 'Are we ready enough? Are we ready enough?' Hey, this thing is happening. This is what we have been waiting for for years and years and years. "The marketplace is a different marketplace. When MLS started, everyone was so excited. Everyone wanted to get their foot in the door. We haven't seen it yet. "The business climate out there is different from what it is now. It is probably not an advantage to start up now."
How is the first match coming along? "I don't think we're going to get as many as we originally wanted. We wish we had three more months -- make that, like, six. But we won't and it's OK. If we had six more months, we'd sell it out. We're just now getting up to speed and rolling out the message and getting the word out there. A year ago, I was the only employee. A lot has happened in a very short time. It is an event, not a game. It is the historic launching of the league. I am very excited about our initial, opening games attendance. "I also want to see what our second games do and our third games do. We're a 10- or 11-game home schedule per team. I want to make sure we sell a league schedule and not an event schedule. Because it is not an event. It is not the World Cup. I think we're going to hit the mark on a lot of our teams. I think we're going to miss the mark on a couple because of any variety of reasons -- competition, late start, not really timing the youth market as well as we wanted to. But I am not giving up on any market right now. I think we're pretty much where we want to be." How can the league avoid duplicating MLS' maiden season, when attendance leveled off after a stunning start? "The truth is, and I think is the difference with MLS -- and I am just guessing -- MLS took that extra year to prepare. So when they launched, they were fully prepared. They did everything. They had crossed every bridge they needed to and hit every market they needed to. We haven't done that yet. I really think our year two has a great potential to be better. We're still going to be getting everything done in season one through season one. I'm really not worried about later on in the season people not wanting to come. What we have now is the Brandi Chastains, the Julie Foudys and the Mia Hamms and those very recognizable players. By midseason, we will have a whole other group of very recognizable players. I saw that in MLS in year one. It wasn't necessarily the allocated players that carried attendance at the end of the season. I think it was a lot of the young stars or new stars that all of a sudden became fan favorites. "We have the best league in the world. We have the best women's product out there. Americans want to be associated with the best, and we will have the best teams." What plans are there for expansion? "It's a launch year. It's not a high enough priority. My opinion is that we have to be careful with expansion. We do not want to spread our talent pool out far. I'm not saying there won't be expansion for next year. My personal thought is that after two seasons it would be better to expand. There is talent out there. We just have to let some of the star power emerge. Let some of these college players get out of school and have a year or two playing." Who is your competition? "I think MLS at some level is competition. I think the WNBA at some level is competition. But you know what? I also look at them as partners. The WNBA, we are partners in women's athletics. Women's athletics is not universally looked at as top-level, professional sports entertainment. We can change that." Will there be situations of players leaving for international tournaments during the season? "There will be some. Luckily the women's calendar isn't as full as the men's calendar. But there is the European Championship this year. We tried to open up a minimal window between June 24 and July 8 where we'll have less games. That's when the European Championship takes place. The Norwegians, Germans and possibly the Swedes will still be in it; the final is July 7. U.S. Soccer has been great. It's been a partnership. We obviously have been saving them a lot of dollars by having players being trained in their teams now vs. the system they had in place. "They have a home-and-away series with Canada June 30 and July 3. The Independence Series they call it because corresponds with both countries' independence days. The Women's World Cup is scheduled for 2003. How will you work around it and have any dates been set by FIFA? "We are talking with them. We are talking with the Football Confederation [CONCACAF] because they have qualification matches next year, and also possibly the Gold Cup. All we can ask of them is keep us in the loop. We know there is going to be some conflict. China is probably where they'll hold the next World Cup. The last World Cup in China was held in November. I would love it to be held in November." Will the rules be different from international rules? "Not much for this year, because I want to fully consider innovative opportunities for soccer. Our substitutions will be five subs -- four field players and one designated goalkeeper. The reason why we don't say five subs is that our travel teams will be 16 players. Our home teams will be able to suit up 20. It would be a disadvantage for the away team if the other team would be able to use five field subs and an away team would have only four field subs. "We have asked the referee association to be very strict and tackling from behind. The analogy I use is like going over the back for rebounds [in basketball]. There is not always a lot of contact, but there is always a call. I want to make sure our creative players to be creative. I think that's what people want to see. They want to see players in the final third to receive the ball, pass or take players on. If there is consistently destructive play preventing that, I don't think it helps our game. "We're going to be strict with encroachment and time wasting. We experimented very briefly with advancing the ball 10 yards. It didn't work. We kind of tabled it and we're going to see if we like a different version of that next year. "We're going to be pretty traditional. We're not going to have overtime in our regular-season games. I was very interesting in seeing how many ties we had in San Diego [training camp]. We had four ties in 24 games. I was pleased with that. In the playoffs we're going to have a Golden Goal. I'm a big proponent of the Golden Goal -- the U.S. gold-medal game [in the Olympics]. You have a clear winner. I'm still working on the number of minutes we have. We're trying to fit that into TV." Where do you want to play the championship game? "I'm looking at three different sites. We'll narrow it down very quickly. I'm just waiting for stadiums to get fully finalized. "We'll have a doubleheader for the championship game. We'll have an All-Star Game followed by a championship game. We're having a tug-of-war there. I believe it's the right way to go. It's a better value. We'll have all the top players there. We'll have a chance to elevate a few more All-Stars. It's not universally agreed on because many people say the All-Star game should have just your All-Stars. I understand that, but for this year, at least, it is better off for us to have it as a doubleheader." Playing at noon and early are unusual times. "We would prefer to play at night as well. This is a time we negotiated out and we have to make it work for us. Most of our TNT games are at noon on Saturday and CNNSI at 6 p.m. Sunday. It's a product of negotiations and just coming up with the best time lot that we feel will work. We played with weekday evenings, but we couldn't get a late enough time slot. I'm more comfortable with the noon than I was with a late afternoon or early evening night game." Gut feelingWashington Freedom 3, Bay Area Cyber Rays 3. After a slow and deliberate start, the inaugural WUSA match will turn into a wild scoring affair in front of 31,456 enthusiastic fans at RFK Stadium. Mia will score one goal and assist on another for the home team. Michael Lewis covers soccer for the New York Daily News. He also has written three books about soccer.
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