Again, we return to that fertile period in the late 1990s when there was so much money floating around that people needed something ridiculous to spend it on. Women's soccer was hot in America after we won gold in the Olympics in 2000, so it seemed like a no-brainer to establish the Women's United Soccer Association.
Just one problem: Americans weren't really interested in men's soccer, let alone women's soccer. The league was actually player-initiated - the twenty members of the U.S. Women's National Team hunted down the investors to fund the league's eight teams. The initial cash infusion was $40 million, and it was intended to last the organization five years.
It was gone by the end of the first year. Attendance was abysmal, games weren't exciting, and the teams had names like the "Bay Area Cyber Rays." The WUSA closed up shop at the end of the 2003 season.
