What’s bugging me about sports this week? The LA Sol

Last week, the Los Angeles Sol, a team in the women’s professional soccer (WPS) league, announced it was folding after only one season. The Sol were considered one of the top, if not the best, team in the league, posting a 12-3-5 regular season record, leading them to a berth in the WPS championship. They also featured the best player in the world, Marta, a forward from Brazil. Marta, a four time FIFA player of the year, was also named the WPS MVP for the inaugural season.

This is a scary revelation for fans of women’s soccer and the league, especially after the previous league, the WUSA, folded after only a few years in operation. The WPS is supposed to be a smarter, sleeker model that will last for a very long time. How could a marquee team like the Sol completely disband after only one year of soccer? Imagine if the Cleveland Cavaliers disbanded and then Lebron James was available in a dispersal draft. That’s how big this is.

Because the Sol folded, a dispersal draft took place where all of the players were picked up by the other teams in the WPS. You’d think Marta would be the first pick in the draft, right? That’s like the Colts folding and Peyton Manning not being the first pick in the draft.

Well, you were wrong.

Now all the other teams in the WPS are scared of folding too and Marta’s guaranteed salary of around $400,000-$500,000 is just too be of a risk for fledgling franchises. Might I add that her salary wouldn’t be hard to handle for any franchise in any of the four major sports or in Major League Soccer, where David Beckham was paid $6.5 million a year.

Yes that’s right. One of the best men’s soccer players gets paid $6.5 million a year and his team still exists, but the female equivalent gets paid more than 10 times less that and her team cannot handle it. How are women’s sporting leagues supposed to flourish in a climate like this?

The Philadelphia Independence had the second pick in the draft. After Shannon Boxx was taken first, they could have chosen Marta, and we could have had the best player in the world in our backyard.

Now, we’ll just have to wait for her new team, the FC Gold Pride, to visit the Independence or the New Jersey-based Sky Blue FC to watch her play.