How would it need to be adjusted other than adding the requirement of 5+ players on the field being women at a time? Soccer is a good sport for it because (1) sides are large, (2) physical contact, while not zero, is limited and policed fairly closely, so you won’t see too many instances of men flattening women just using their size, (3) height is less of a factor, (4) a big part of the game is effectively using space (which there is plenty of) … the reasons kind of go on for why this is better than the other major team sports.
Compared with football or hockey - much better. Basketball could work but sides are small and Baseball might be OK, but the one-on-one aspect of pitcher vs batter,
Well, you no doubt know the sport better then I do but I think it’s obvious kids versus professionals are two completely different scenarios. It’s a team game of course but I can just see instances throughout the match where a man having to go directly against a woman would make for uneven or unfair outcomes. Some of which would no doubt even be abused within the rules. Any time a male soccer player can get in open space vs a woman it would unbalance the playing field. A male penalty shot vs a female goalie is another instance that comes to mind. The higher risk of injury for a woman from collisions with men 30-40lbs heavier. Etc.
I’m not saying it couldn’t be done I’m just wondering how much of the sport would have to be changed/adjusted to make it as fair and competitive as possible.
Kids are obviously way different. Nonetheless I don’t think the rules would have to be changed that much, if at all. Maybe eliminate the header, which has already been done below age 13 - and the day may be coming when that rule walks its way up to higher ages, as the evidence mounts of the problems caused by repetitive, low-grade head trauma, and players are just eventually no longer taught.
At any rate, I think the sport would be quite different, to be sure, as a matter of strategy - but that’s different from having to change the rules.
Compared to other big team sports, there are few collisions in soccer, and the ones that do happen are usually penalized. The average male soccer player is also not enormous, compared with football or basketball for example. There are 150lb soccer players in both men’s and women’s leagues.
Yeah idk, maybe soccer would have the potential to one day in the future evolve to that point. I personally just think there are thousands of variables from the business side to the field that would rarely favor or even benefit the women in a coed professional league.
The better long term goal IMO is to continue to try to increase interest in female sports to the point where they can make comparable money. Whether the business side of that ever works out is hard to say but I would think most professional women in sports would simply prefer that route.
I was throwing out the discussion topic of Steve Malik doing something different (de-segregating the genders in his businesses, and allowing the female employees in his sports teams to participate with the vastly higher paying male employees). Which would be a major news feature and bring lots of attention to his attempts to get this project going. People will find lots of excuses to keep women off the big league teams, but women work with men doing the same work in fire departments, the military, and police. UPS and FedEx workers get paid the same irrespective of gender. Yet in sports they get away with keeping women out, or relegate them to the poor paying leagues.
I’d like to see Raleigh be at the forefront of fixing this civil rights aberration (like Greensboro was for blacks to be integrated (Lunch Counter Sit In of 1960)).
I’m sure people will still say women should be shut out of the big leagues. Yet a woman will be in the first return mission to land on the moon in 2024.
If women can serve alongside men in the military, police, fire squads, and moon missions, I think they can handle being on the same pro soccer team as men. Steve Malik can be the leader of integration and inclusion - and Raleigh will be the place where it happens.
All different scenarios. Most sports focus’ directly on physical abilities at the elite level. Woman can match a man’s skill and smarts but genetically cannot match their physical ceiling.
And women aren’t regulated to lower paying leagues because they are being “oppressed” or whatever. As far as I understand it, there is no rule saying a woman can’t play in the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, or MLS. They don’t because after a certain level, a woman’s genetics do not allow them to remain competitive with a man. Even if they are technically more skilled. And again, woman don’t realistically want to be in the same league as the guys. There is zero benefit for them doing so. What they want and should get is the same popularity the men get. That popularity drives how much money they can make. Unfortunately sports is a business. It sounds harsh and unfair but you simply can’t pay a player in one league that makes $300m profit the same as a player in a league that profits $5billion. It has nothing to do with paying them less because they are female. It’s basic business. It’s because there isn’t the money available to pay them the same way. As a matter of fact, I believe the women’s soccer team gets a larger cut of the leagues profits then the men do. So it’s actually more then fair, it just can’t be equal because economically it’s impossible currently.
To drive it back to it’s relevance to this topic. We already have an outside chance of getting an MLS bid. Steve Malik campaigning to integrate the league would probably only negatively affect that already small chance and frankly would never happen. Economically it wouldn’t work. Competitively it wouldn’t work. Heck he would probably get boycotted from the woman who are not going to want to be forced into a coed professional league. A huge shift like that for a pro league would take years and years to figure out. If it could even be done at all. Not just a progressive light bulb idea within a matter of 1 or 2years. Potentially even a brand new league would have to be started.
I do hope a new stadium gets built whether we get MLS or not as I think it would do wonders to increase the popularity of the NCFC and Courage. I would go to games to support both.
Really, really curious how Downtown South opponents feel about PNC arena being awarded $225 million public, tax dollars to upgrade/maintain the facility ($9m per yr x 25 yrs). This must be an atrocious defeat for those in here that oppose public dollars subsidizing stadiums/arenas, based on the repugnance a few had toward the Downtown South proposal. It must be extra salty considering that PNC arena is closer to Cary than Raleigh, and this forum is comprised mostly of folks that care more about Raleigh than Cary. It must be even more abhorrent that PNC arena is 100% car dependent and does not support a mixed use model that would further encourage the replenishment (ROI) of those interlocal funds (restaurant/hotel tax), considering there are no restaurants/bars/hotels currently that directly benefit from events at PNC arena.
Holders of the belief that arenas/stadiums must provide world-class entertainment to our region by their own merit without public dollars, how upset are you right now?
I’ve talked at length, both on this forum and on Twitter (@DavidDonovanNC) about how this also a terrible, terrible misuse of public funds. The Centennial Authority initially wanted to leverage $200 million in debt, which would have been close to $14 million a year, which was just ludicrous. Wake County professional staff proposed giving them $8 million a year, which was still really, really, really bad, but I could at least appreciate the sentiment of knocking almost half of the cost off the bill instead of just giving them whatever they asked for. But then the elected officials overruled professional staff and bumped the figure up to $9 million a year, which was really, really disappointing.
But, yes, using taxpayer money to subsidize stadium upgrades for professional sports teams is a really, really bad idea, regardless of which professional sports team is being subsidized. The thing about this that’s super weird to me, though, is that proponents of the Exit 298B stadium project will point to this like it’s some gotcha moment and opponents are being hypocritical. So then I patiently explain to people that, yes, this is also a really bad and wasteful use of public money, and people are surprised when I say that, and I really, really can’t fathom why. Like, on my Twitter account I said something about the project that caused the PR director for NCFC to DM me, and we ended up having a very nice, very civil 30-minute conversation about this, and one of the first things he asked was how I feel about PNC Arena getting public subsidies and was like, “Yeah, that’s wrong and I hate that too,” and he seemed genuinely surprised by that answer, and I really wasn’t sure why.
Fair enough - some people do have cognitive dissonance on this issue because PNC already exists with sports and entertainment, etc and thus somehow that equates to a better deal for the county.
Perhaps part of the reason people are having a hard time understanding the line in the sand regarding the no funding stance for the stadium proposal located at 35.7563393, -78.6469794 is because everyone realized that these funds were going to be spent anyways, and that they were specifically earmarked for projects that boost tourism. If the stadium formally known as Penmarc wasn’t going to receive the funds, who was? Well now here we are.
Granted, DoToSo missed the boat on applying for the funds, so this is all just spilled milk under the bridge
Over the course of talking about this issue so much online, I’ve come around to the idea that the whole tourism tax itself, as currently designed, is fatally flawed, and the law ought to be rewritten so that hotel tax money can be spent on upgrading public transit. The Raleigh Convention Center is an even bigger boondoggle than either PNC Arena or the proposed soccer stadium, but elected officials are absolutely in love with it so, as you note, here we are. We’ve committed to spend $1.2 billion in funds from this tax, and there just aren’t $1.2 billion worth of worthwhile projects that qualify for funding as the law is currently written.
It’s a non-sequitur to the extent that the law as currently written definitely doesn’t allow you to use hotel tax money to pay for public transit. But laws can be amended!
Well Wake County voters opted for a half-cent increase to the local sales tax rate back in November 2016 to help fund an expansion of public bus and train services. Probably can’t use that money to fund stadiums either. Doesn’t make it a fatal flaw.
Hopefully (IMO) we get a transit funding source in addition to the tourism tax incentive, and in addition to the half-cent local tax increase. Working with what we have at the moment, I hope the Blue Ridge corridor/PNC arena grounds can move toward a mixed use model. I was actually shocked recently by the number of residential units across Edwards Mill from the arena. Hopefully PNC will one day be a district we are decently proud of, location aside.
I mean, transit jumped out at me as a critical need, but I would also be totally fine just taking the hotel tax money and putting it into the regular pot of money that is used to fund our schools, police, libraries, public parks, decaying water infrastructure, etc.
But, yeah, I would argue that a dedicated tax that can only be used for public transit is good, and a dedicated tax that can only be used to provide venture capital for tourism startups is bad. I realize people disagree about this, and that’s fine, but my problem with the hotel tax is what the funds are being used for, not that dedicated revenue streams are per se bad.
Agreed that those are great things to spend money on. However, from the inception of this tax, restaurants and hotels were only on board because they would eventually be one of the beneficiaries (from an additional tax on their product) due to an increase in tourism. What’s the benefit to business if none of this money goes to growing tourism?
The Centennial Authority could always build a parking deck and develop a mixed use entertainment district on some of their parking lots. Their charter allows them to develop facilities for accommodations, meetings, conferences, food service, entertainment, and recreation among others. Certainly hotels and restaurants qualify but residences are a form of accommodations, too…
