Women's soccer just continues to struggle to take off in America. The WUSA wouldn't take off after three years from 2000 to 2003, and now the WPS has made its final curtain call. WPS staved off extinction in 2011, but the league was suspended earlier this season and the league eventually ran out of money to sustain itself.
Beau Dure of ESPN files this report on the folding of the WPS.
"We sincerely regret having to take this course of action," said T. Fitz Johnson, Atlanta Beat owner and chairman of the WPS.
"We are proud of what WPS has accomplished, having attracted the highest quality players in the world to play in the best women's league, as well as the progress women's soccer has enjoyed over the past three years," Thomas Hofstetter, CEO and president of Sky Blue FC, said.
Teams in the WPS always struggled to make money, and there was much turnover even among the most successful of the teams on the field. The FC Gold Pride were the Bay Area's WPS team, but only lasted three years from 2008 to 2010 before its finances dried up. Which was unfortunate, because FC Gold Pride did win the WPS Championship in its final season of operation before they folded up.
The WPS had its headquarters based in San Francisco.