The following guest piece was offered up by longtime strategic communications professional, storyteller and longtime supporter of women’s athletics everywhere Dave Siroty, now head of Front Porch Athletics
Wow! The build up to the Women’s World Cup was huge. The story lines were great, the focus on equal pay and support for women’s soccer was powerful.
So when Heather O’Reilly went into her rightful push to support the women’s game in the Fox pre-game show, I wondered how her message would be received. She told us to buy tickets, go to games, buy jerseys and, with a smile, even suggested viewers should get her North Carolina Courage jersey. I listened and will go again go a nearby Sky Blue FC game.
Her message was powerful and led to my biggest and most surprising find during the last month. The U.S. based National Women’s Soccer League seemed woefully unprepared to benefit from the excitement.
In the 30 minutes before the game with the Netherlands, I jumped on my phone and visited the NWSL site and all of its eight teams to see how they jumped on the bandwagon.
They didn’t!
The NWSL had a buried post about the U.S. beating England. No screaming “Go USA” banner or image. No details of local watch parties. No excitement about NWSL upcoming games when the players come home.
And the teams were hardly better outside of the Chicago Red Stars, Portland Thorns, Reign FC and Utah Royals.
Utah made the biggest push with a World Cup final Watch Party at the Gallivan Center in Salt Lake City.
Chicago makes a big deal about the Homecoming Game for Julie Ertz, Sam Kerr and 12 other World Cup players. (That link crashed 2 hours after the game)
Reign FC took a similar approach but their click thru off the Megan Rapinoe image went straight to a Ticketmaster page. No story. No excitement. Just seat locations and prices. UGH!!!
The Thorns linked to a follow the players in France page.
Although the other clubs completely blanked, the Houston Dynamo were the most disappointing. They promoted “Soccer Day Ea Do” featuring the World Cup, Copa America and Gold Cup finals – the exact trio Rapinoe and Alex Morgan blasted FIFA for scheduling in disrespecting the women.
I then went one step further. How did the player’s colleges do in promoting their alumnae? Outside of Penn State, which hosted a Watch Party at their Panzer Stadium, Portland using a Rapinoe image to sell tickets, Cal with a front page image of Morgan, and UVA with an image of the Sports Illustrated pre-Cup cover, the others missed the chance to loudly promote women’s soccer and athletics on their main athletics pages. 
“This is the time when we really have to seize the moment coming up because this could have so much impact on the future generations of women’s soccer and just the next couple of years.”
Once I realized that Sarah’s own team and league essentially haven’t helped set the pace, my mind started racing with what can happen now that the U.S. has won #4. The players have done their job. ESPN and Nike have done theirs. Now comes the grassroots work.
Start with team and league web sites. Well done Utah Royals! UVA too in a big way! Washington Spirits where is your ROSE LAVELLE! blaring headline? 
Luckily, being in women’s sports is a marketers dream. The players are usually approachable, nice, caring, receptive and easy to work with. So utilize them without burning out the World Cup stars.
Now is the time to get ALL players out into the community even more than ever before. To soccer camps, sponsors, community events, the list goes on and on. Use this effort to drive attendance and awareness to the “Welcome Home” games and beyond. Work with every major company in town and have a player or two in full uniform handing out ticket coupons as employees arrive to work. Have them talk about their World Cup friends.
I’ve always believed one of the keys to promoting women’s sports is getting as many as possible to meet the players and feel involved.
Personalize the World Cup win and the players who participated for other nations. Let them address the crowd, write open letters to the community and/or do socially shared blogs/videos targeting adults and their children thanking them for their support. At the same time explain “our work is not done” yet. Encourage people to give our team and our sport a look. It will be worth it.
Use the “I believe that we will win” chant to emphasize the WE.
The soccer community, female athletes, sports fans, WE all win by supporting women’s soccer.
During the World Cup final, Rapinoe yelled at one of her teammates on a poorly played ball. “It has to be better!”
Marketers that goes for you too.
