DiCiccio Out? Breakers Out?

[HS Harry]

I am torn a little by the current situation of the WPS. Part of me believes that the blue-print for success is often counter-intuitive.

For example it is better to avoid the biggest markets and concentrate in secondary areas like Rochester NY or Hartford CT. You must set the league up by geographic regions - but no inter-regional play until the playoffs in order to avoid/ lessen travel costs. As for TV, you need to get on ESPN (even if you pay them!!), because they drive the secondary market and that is what helps you the most. Most importantly, teams actually do an initially good job of local marketing but to be effective takes tremendous effort and a continuing supply of money. That is something that will always dry up in years 3-5 of any new league. That is really the failure. Without the infusion of NBA cash at that key time for the WNBA it is doubtful they would have survived. I hope the WPS survives, but I must admit I am not confident.

[Unregistered]

Well at least Tony can coach his own ECNL club until something better comes along.

Doesn't he own that Indoor soccer place in CT.

[Unregistered]

Doesn't he own that Indoor soccer place in CT.

No, SoccerPlus has been apart from FSA for more than two years now. If he had owned the facility, the club would not have left.

[Unregistered]

First Tony, then Tito.

So who are going to be the next head honcho's in Boston?

[Unregistered]

We got the Cup, who cares about $19 million a year right fielders who cant make an easy catch of a low line drive, or boy wonder GMs. Do the Breakers still play tennis at Longwood?

[Unregistered]

As the man at the top says, the buck does not stop with him, so blame the coach, the GM,
the players,the fans, the bankers, the janitor. Keep Singing.

[Unregistered]

DiCicco was a very very average coach for the Breakers. On paper they had the supposedly had the best team. But his selection skills fell far short to help offset his surprising inability to coaching at this level.
Interesting that when he was away this season they started to win. I liken him to the Math teacher that took over a school team(USA) when they had the best athletes /talent in the world.. He rode that glory but as a pro coach in WPS vrs other pro coaches with close to equal talent he was way over matched.

He's very average overall. All you have to do is go to some of the National conferences and compare him to the other coaches....Dick Bate, Emma Hayes, Bob Gansler...he doesn't even come close.

[Unregistered]

Perhaps there is some life left

As Jeff Kassouf reports, WPS expansion in Connecticut appears imminent. Jeff’s piece has all the latest information, and according to another rumor that’s slipped through the cone of silence, at least one of the team’s owners is no stranger to WPS.
The development is a bit surprising, to say the least. Connecticut first emerged as a possible expansion candidate in late August. Details have remained scarce ever since. To be honest, the later it got the less likely it seemed. But alas, here we are. Hopefully the process is inching towards finalization.

For all the talk about westward expansion, buttressing the league’s East Coast presence can’t be a bad idea. Connecticut may not be the first locale that springs to mind when one thinks of pro sports, but no matter.

There’s always an inherent risk involved in expanding in such a small, niche market. Lest we forget, the Rochester-based WNY Flash attracted pitiful attendance figures prior to the World Cup. Granted, that was a league-wide issue, but it says something when a franchise endowed with the likes of Marta, Christine Sinclair, and Alex Morgan struggles to break the 2,000-attendees threshold.

But as I tried to posit in this piece (which feels like it was written a lifetime and a day ago), there are a number of compelling reasons as to why a WPS team can succeed in the Constitution State.

Connecticut is uniquely positioned because it’s an unheralded hotbed for youth soccer, as Tony DiCicco would likely attest to. The state has produced the likes of Kristine Lilly, Alyssa Naeher, Tiffany Weimer, Kia McNeill, Katie Schoepfer, and others.
It’s been a few years so my memories of growing up in the state are now tinged with nostalgia and romanticism. That said, as a kid, it always seemed as if women’s sports/teams/events had a certain profile in Connecticut. Indeed, they had one at all.
Geno Auriemma’s UConn Huskies; the Connecticut Sun; the short-lived New England Blizzard; the Connecticut Brakettes; even the women’s-only New Haven Open (formerly the Pilot Pen) tennis tournament were always a thing. If nothing else, there was a nice sense of tradition, one that was tough to appreciate until you left its borders. That’s perhaps down to the dearth of top-tier sports franchises or the state’s diminutive size.
Once March Madness rolled around, it was hard not to get swept up in the fanfare and excitement of it all, even if it was the only bit of basketball you watched all year. Allegiances to the Red Sox/Yankees and Patriots/Giants or Jets were often drawn across county lines, but the Huskies were well-loved because they were usually pretty good. Even more importantly, however, they were ours. The team (men’s or women’s notwithstanding) always spurred a strong sense of local pride that often went unmatched.
If everything works out, Connecticut natives will turn out to support a local pro team they can identify as their own. It shouldn’t matter that it’s a pro women’s soccer team. That might even be for the better.
Again it feels like a lifetime and a day ago, but Julie Logan once wrote that WPS should embrace a “small but mighty” mindset. With a bit of hope and luck, that maxim can apply to both the league and the location of its newest franchise.

*Note: Assuming everything gets carried out (which is a big assumption, no doubt) it will be fun to see if the new team upholds the state’s sporting tradition of adorably goofy animal-themed monikers. There’s already the Bridgeport Sound Tigers (hockey), the Connecticut Whale (hockey), the New Britain Rock Cats (baseball), and the Bridgeport Bluefish (baseball). Too bad the WUSA already claimed the CyberRays.