The Women's World Cup was the sporting event of the summer. Fans across the country watched the U.S. national team battle through several tough games including a thrilling win over Brazil on penalty kicks in the quarterfinals and work its way deep into the tournament before losing to Japan in heartbreaking fashion in the championship match.
Despite its tough loss in the final, the U.S. women's team built up an incredible following. More people watched the ESPN telecast of the game against Japan than had watched any soccer game in the network's history men's games included. Approximately 13.5 million viewers tuned in, more than twice the number that watched the U.S. men's team take on Algeria in the 2010 World Cup (the previous record holder).
The match also set a relatively new record by drawing more tweets per second 7,196 than any other event in Twitter's short existence. While Twitter hasn't been widely used until recently, the game beat out many important national events, including the Super Bowl (4,064 tweets) and the announcement of Osama bin Laden's death (5,106 tweets).
Even the typically cynical and judgmental sports media embraced the national team's effort with overwhelmingly positive coverage. Most American articles focused on Japan's win or soccer's popularity rather than the United States' two blown leads and three consecutive missed penalty kicks.
What surprised me most about this World Cup was the amount of attention Americans devoted to a women's sport. The argument over the validity of women's sports as compared to men's sports has existed as long as athletics themselves, but the huge advantage men's sports usually have in viewing popularity in the United States is incontrovertible.
While it was unusual that the women's national team garnered more attention than the men's squad, this type of phenomenon is not only limited to soccer. Other women's sports also directly compete for popularity with their male counterparts. In tennis, for example, the women's championship match at Wimbledon in 2010 drew a Nielsen rating of 1.8, only 0.1 off of the men's final's 1.9. In the Winter Olympics, women's figure skating is regularly the most-watched event, and women's gymnastics typically draws a large fan base during the Summer Olympics.
What all of these sports have in common is that women are either better at them or play them in such a different way that it provides a completely altered experience for the spectator.
The first point is easy to see. From a spectator's perspective, sports are not about being second-best. When we watch a game on television, we want to believe that the athletes we're watching are the best at what they do. In figure skating and gymnastics, women consistently outperform their male counterparts, and viewers take notice.
The second point the reason why women's tennis and women's soccer draw equal or better ratings than men's teams is more subtle. Clearly, if the U.S. women's national team lined up against the U.S. men's team, it would be obliterated, and the same would hold true if Sharapova took the court against Federer.
What these women bring to the table, however, is a completely different way of playing their sport. Men's tennis consists of powerful serves and volleys that rarely last for longer than three or four hits, while women's tennis is more of a finesse game, with placement taking priority over power and movement overriding strength. Some audiences see women's technique as a better way of playing the game, so they watch.
Women's soccer similarly diverges in technique from men's. Men's soccer relies heavily on passing, but oftentimes plays consist of a Rooney or a Messi weaving his way through five opponents and firing the ball into the top corner of the net. In the Women's World Cup, however, long passes took priority over a quick move, strategy took precedence over raw speed and most goals only came after the ball had been worked right in front of the net.
These patterns also explain the relative lack of popularity of other women's sports when compared to their male equivalents. Track and field offers the best example: Both men and women compete in the exact same events, but women put up slower times and shorter distances. In basketball, both the men's and women's games stress the same attributes height, athleticism and shooting capability. In most cases, men have the advantage in these areas, so people watch the men's games.
While no one would question the obvious need to have ample sports opportunities for both genders, or that athletics can be important regardless of their popularity with spectators, experience shows that American audiences only embrace women's sports in which women exceed their male counterparts or play the game in an entirely different way.
