#betterforit.
It’s a Nike women’s slogan around training and general personal wellness. You may have seen it on Instagram or Twitter. You may not hear it among members of the Canadian women’s soccer team, but the slogan is implied and understood. That’s how they view the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup on home soil.
The women’s team is currently in a better position to succeed because of the added interest a host garners. Subsequently, they need to prove their ability this summer to better women’s sport in this country moving forward—not women’s soccer or Canadian soccer, but women’s sport as a whole. The stakes are that high, mainly because for female athletes their visibility has been so low.
The pendulum started to swing the other way for the women’s team after the London Olympics when they were the darlings of the Games from a Canadian TV perspective. An average of 3.8 million Canadians watched the controversial semifinals against the United States, with 10 million Canadians tuning in at some point in the match. That’s important to note for two reasons. One is that it was the second-highest rated Olympic event that summer, trailing only the men’s 100 metre final. It’s also noteworthy because the semifinal had more viewers than the bronze medal game that Canada won.
With this summer’s World Cup in Canada, key matches on the weekend and optimal North American time zones, those numbers are expected to swell. Since their Olympic honeymoon, the women’s soccer team has not been in the public eye. That all changes now.
This summer Canadian viewers will see few female athletes on their TVs. Ronda Rousey will be seen by more Canadians on the silver screen than in the octagon. Televised WNBA games will be scarce. If you wanted to watch the Canadian women’s rugby 7’s win their first ever cup championship and qualify for the Olympics, you needed to have WiFi. Hosting the World Cup changes that dynamic and fills that void. The vast majority of athletic images young girls in this country will see this summer will be of women in white and red on a soccer pitch. The potential power of that is transformative—an opportunity that doesn’t come by often.
Sophie Schmidt understands what’s at stake. “We have a huge platform and opportunity to really impact people and put women’s sport at the forefront,” the Canadian midfielder said. “It’s just a blessing to get that coverage because it’s something we’ve been crying out for and now we just have to relish it and make it exciting for the fans because if it’s boring they don’t want to watch.”
Nil-nil draws won’t get it done, a fact understood by coach John Herdman, who has been impressing upon his players the need to have attacking intent and play attractive football, which is a big reason Adriana Leon figures to play a big role for Canada. Christine Sinclair is the striker that everybody already knows. Leon will, with any luck, be the striker everyone has learned by tournament’s end.
The potential of combining in front of goal with arguably the greatest female athlete the country has ever produced is not lost on Leon. “In the soccer world I looked up to Christine Sinclair. Pretty much everyone did growing up,” she said.
The potential difference moving forward is that young girls looking up to this team have options of who they can emulate. If you’re a winger with a bundle of energy maybe it’s Schmidt. If you’re a striker with pace maybe it’s Leon. If you’re a no nonsense defender maybe it’s Kadeisha Buchanan. If you’re a technically gifted midfielder who treasures the ball at your feet maybe it’s Jessie Fleming. The varied personalities on this team are why they have the potential to inspire a generation the same way the 1999 World Cup champion U.S. side did on home soil. The varied personalities—the likes of Brandi Chastain, Julie Foudy, Mia Hamm, Michelle Akers, and Brianna Scurry—were the tipping point that created the juggernaut the present day USA women’s soccer program has become.
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If this tournament goes well, there are psychological, physiological and sociological benefits to gain. Studies show females enrolled in sports from a young age have better self esteem and body image, lower rates of cancer, go further in school and make more money. It’s incumbent on all of us that our young girls are inspired to play, as physical inactivity costs Canadian taxpayers approximately $6.8 billion a year.
Rather than let that apparent pressure choke them, they are embracing it and hoping it produces diamonds not dynamite. One of the team’s leaders, Schmidt, has a more introspective look at the pressure hosting brings. “It’s an interesting word—pressure. I think it comes more from within than from without. We feel the pressure of performing in Canada for Canadians,” she said. “We want to grow the sport, we want to inspire younger generations to pick up a soccer ball or even follow their dreams and so if we go out there and play absolute crap that’s not going to do anybody any good. So there is pressure on ourselves to play well and get the result everybody is hoping for.”
Being the host has its perks, though. As I was hanging out with Schmidt and Leon when they were on a pre-tournament promotional tour with Nike, that became evident to me. When we talk about the tangible benefits of playing in front of a packed stadiums, Schmidt lights up red and white due to her textbook orthodontic smile and rosy cheeks. She reveals the type of conversations team members have in their little idle time in between two a day training sessions in the smouldering heat. Schmidt recalled: “Somebody mentioned white towels which would be carrying that hockey theme into a soccer stadium—just kind of embracing it and using that energy to support us on the pitch. When you get a little tired and the crowd gets going you run a little faster because they are there.” She’s reciting the scenario as if it is something she’s dreamt of in anticipation.
On this day the women have equal time for media and supporters. They are doing a workshop with a local running club, preaching the gospel of the sport to a unique audience by taking them through the paces of the beep test, an endurance exercise frequently used in rugby and soccer training. The exercise is attempting to demonstrate how arduous preparing to represent your country can be. This is traditionally how women’s soccer players had to sell themselves, selling the sport two by two as missionaries for the cause. As they learn from their interaction with fans of all demographics, the days of the “women’s soccer audience” made up exclusively of female club players and their dads is long gone.
Now the women’s soccer audience has readily become the soccer audience and just like in the men’s game in North America, fans come out of the woodwork to cheer when nationalism enters the equation. Unlike the men’s game, Canada has a respected reputation in women’s soccer. The last and only time the men made the World Cup was 1986 when they failed to score a goal, finishing with an 0-3 record. To get excited about Canadian soccer on the world stage means to get excited about women’s soccer. The women provide Canada hope.
Unlike the men’s struggle on the pitch, the women’s struggle has been creating a brand and sustaining it. How far they can push the viral attention is part of their task. Few knew the name Joseph Kony before 2012 but thanks to a social media campaign “Stop Kony” videos garnered 70 million views in four days. It turns out that going from obsolete to unstoppable online is possible, something that wasn’t the case for previous generations of amateur athletes. The “information age” suggests getting data about your commodity is the key, yet we now are in the “attention” age. The battle for marketers is no longer getting out information about your product but gaining attention. Attention is the resource that is scarce among millennials. Because there are so many more options, our attention spans continue to shrink.
It’s why more people remember Brandi Chastain taking her shirt off than remember her World Cup winning goal itself. Nobody remembers Brianna Scurry making the penalty kick save to make Chastain’s kick matter. Although Chastain going high and to her right to capture the World Cup was impressive, the attention was due to the celebration, a “manly” symbol of strength, bringing back memories of Ryan Giggs celebrating his wonder goal versus Arsenal in the 1999 FA Cup semifinals. They not only won, they punctuated it with flair, the reason their moments are etched in stone in our brains years after they happened.
Richard Lanham, UCLA professor and author of “The Economics of Attention: Style and Substance in the Age of Information” adds, “If attention is now at the centre of the economy rather than stuff, then so is style. It moves from the periphery to the centre. Style and substance trade places. Push style to the extreme and it becomes substance.” In other words, it’s not just what you do it’s how you do it and how you look doing it.
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Measures have been put in place so attention is garnered and leveraged. Schmidt has dyed her short spiky hair pink to be noticed with ease on the pitch and has created a highly produced video detailing a day in the life preparing for the tournament. The Canadian players’ Twitter handles have been included in press releases about the team. Videos of the team returning home to adoring fans have been shared by the Canadian Soccer Association. The hashtag #CanadaRED has been promoted and fans have been encouraged to share their viewing parties on Canada Soccer’s Facebook page.
Not only has the female kit industry expanded, women are now being utilized as pitch “men.” Canada is one of the few teams with multiple brand sponsored athletes, Schmidt being one of them having a longstanding relationship with Nike since her University of Portland days. She realizes her fortune. “I remember when I first came on the national team there were maybe one or two people who had sponsorships and that was just the likes of Christine Sinclair and maybe somebody else,” she recalls. “Sincy had this lucrative sponsorship and the other person got boots and that was it, so we’ve come to the point where a bunch of us have sponsorships and it extends far more than just giving us our footwear.”
NPD Group sports industry analyst Matt Powell has gone on record to say that the industry hasn’t done women any favours: “The industry has under-served women for years. Only in the last couple of years have we seen brands and retailers really starting to give women equal weight.”
It’s fitting Nike’s women’s soccer-specific campaign “No Maybe’s” has become a trendy hashtag. Because there are no if’s, and’s or butts, every moment during the 2015 World Cup is a chance for the Canadian women’s soccer team to gain ground on the rest of Canada’s national sports teams. Every minute of stoppage time, every interview, every autograph, all are chances to leave an impression that are far more powerful than the likes, favourites, retweets and other social media impressions the team’s success might garner.
Success for the national team will be reflected in the score line, but its impact will be felt much more broadly. That score impacts not only the CSA’s bottom line but also the willingness of young girls across the country to gear up and head outside to play the beautiful game.