5. Why start another pro league?
U.S. Soccer looks to keep players in the spotlight between the Olympics, where the Americans earned a gold medal in a 2-1 victory against Japan in front of 80,203 fans at Wembley Stadium, and the World Cup. Wambach says: ”We have a lot more fan base than we had in the past, and we’re hoping to piggyback some of the fan base” of the national team and bring them ”in the stadiums around the country.” If girls high school soccer participation over the last decade is any indication of fan base, it’s on the rise. There were 370,975 high school girls playing soccer in 2011-12, compared to 295,265 in 2001-02 – a 26 percent increase – according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. Morgan says it’s ”so important for the future generation, when they come up, to have a way to play soccer.”
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AP Sports Writer Teresa Walker in Nashville, Tenn., and researcher Monika Mathur in Washington, D.C. contributed to this report.