Members of the U.S. women’s national soccer team celebrate their World Cup victory on Sunday. (Photo: Corbis)
As
the United States celebrates its victory in the Women’s World Cup,
girls across the country are sporting their Carli Lloyd jerseys,
dreaming of running the field in 2019 or 2023.
One
of the residual victors from this year’s tournament, which raked in an
unprecedented 22.86 million viewers in Sunday’s 5-2 win over Japan —
making it the highest rated soccer game in the U.S. on a single network —
will be youth soccer organizations, which can expect to see an uptick
in participants as a result of the success of superstars like Carli
Lloyd and Hope Solo. In 1999, after the U.S. women’s soccer team last
won a world cup, 7.3 million females ages 6 and older participated in
soccer, which was a 20 percent increase from the 6.06 million
participants in 1987, according to Public Radio International. And this most recent victory — which got very public support from high-profile figures like Beyoncé, Barack Obama, and Justin Timberlake
— is sure to have a similar effect, helping boost the youth soccer
participation numbers, which were steady from 2008 to 2012, according to
the United States Soccer Federation.
“There
is no question that we will be a beneficiary of this victory,” Ian
McMahon, national executive director of the American Youth Soccer
Organization (AYSO), tells Yahoo Parenting. “Anytime there is a success
as high-profile as this, with this record number of viewers, for us as
an organization, we would expect to see a surge in young girls wanting
to play soccer. We believe that, with what we offer, they’ll come in and
want to play soccer longer and become advocates for the game. It
doesn’t matter where they end up — it’s just about being active, coming
out, trying soccer, having fun.”
Young fans cheer on the U.S. team in the Women’s World Cup. (Photo: FIFA/Getty Images)
AYSO,
which counts U.S. national team member Alex Morgan among its alumnae,
currently has 204,893 girls registered in the U.S., and they expect that
number to increase steadily between this World Cup victory and the
upcoming Olympics. But it’s not just girls who were excited by this
week’s big win. “We had people in the studio who have sons and no
daughters, and they were wearing the jerseys of Abby Wambach or Carli
Lloyd,” Fox Sports analyst Kyndra de St. Aubin, who covered the World
Cup, tells Yahoo Parenting. “But for young women especially, to have
these incredible role models, it proves you can achieve your goals.
These women foster an environment of working hard and achieving your
goals — they are motivating young women to get involved in this sport or
whatever sport or activity they want.”Culled from yahoo news
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