Women's sports is one of the hottest growth sectors in the business of sports. A case in point is the National Soccer Alliance (NSA), a new women's professional soccer league currently in the startup phase. With exhibition games, special events, and the 1999 U.S.-hosted Women's World Cup paving the way, the league is planning to debut in 2000.

"The gold medal performance of the U.S. women's soccer team at the 1996 Olympics showcased our talented players to the nation and the world," says the NSA's development consultant, Jennifer Rottenberg (MBA '96), whose New York Ð based New Century Sports - a strategy, marketing, and athlete representation firm she founded - has been selected by the league's seed investors to create and manage the new league.

The league's marketing strategy is "a hybrid of the ABL and WNBA women's basketball models," Rottenberg says. Once corporate sponsorship is secured and the league is fully capitalized, and with additional revenues derived from television contracts and ticket sales, the NSA, Rottenberg believes, will be on sound financial footing from the outset, unlike most fledgling leagues. The NSA's eight franchises will be based in major metropolitan television markets but will hold their games in intimate, spectator-friendly venues. This strategy should produce the revenues and crowds (per-game target: 2,500 fans) to meet initial break-even projections.

The league will draw on a fan base of some 60 million soccer aficionados and the star power of players such as Michelle Akers, Mia Hamm, and Julie Foudy who have already committed to the NSA. Says Rottenberg, "We have a great asset to sell - a terrific group of young women whose personalities appeal to women and girls and to men and boys as well."

Indeed, one "soccer dad," Booth Gardner (MBA '63), former governor of Washington, whose soccer baptism was coaching his daughter in a girls' league in the 1970s, is now the NSA's commissioner. "It's tremendous to see how women's soccer has grown in this country," Gardner asserts. "Our players not only need but deserve a high-quality professional league to further their development."

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