Women's Pro Soccer may not be failing, but it is in danger. Their sanction is in doubt as there are only five teams in the league for 2012. There is a lawsuit against WPS from a former team owner. While attendance was significantly up after the Women's World Cup there is an issue about revenue not being greater than costs.

So everyone has their own idea on what to do. Former MLS and WPS GM Peter Wilt wants to kill off the fully pro league and replace it with a semi-pro but national system. Others have started a petition to try and convince the USSF to sanction and support WPS in 2012. Beau Dure is covering the issues with WPS rather well over at his blog with some writing for www.ESPNw.com where you find more than this summation of events.

What we know is that the players want to play, but most aren't signing contracts until they know what is going on with the women's game in the USA. Now I'm certainly not an expert on the women's game, not even following teams tagentally outside of the USWNT, but I do know a little bit about women's sports.

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Many soccer fans fantasize that there is a huge amount of untapped viewers of the sport. They point to the great ratings that the World Cup gets and proclaim "see! MLS should be getting more viewers" and while they may be right on the surface, the ratings for the Champions League Final between Barcelona and Manchester United in the USA weren't that good. The national number is a preliminary 1.8. This match was on a broadcast station available in 100% of households and did not double the typical 1.0 of the MLS Cup Final despite having the two best teams in the world playing for the most significant international club trophy.

There were some bright spots. It shouldn't surprise people here that Seattle had a strongish 2.9 rating/10 share, good for 2nd in the USA. DC was #1 with a 3.3 while New York, Providence, Los Angeles and Austin round out the top 5. For comparison the Seattle Sounders v Portland Timbers match on ESPN (that's cable only folks, lower penetration) got a 3.0 in Seattle.

In the end, for this sport to succeed as a business, for Major League Soccer to expand its limited salary cap it is going to have to get TV ratings for its Finals that compete with a random run-of-the-mill midday Saturday baseball game on Fox. That's a 2.7 this year, 1.7 last. Sure the soccer diehards will watch, we always will. But the current financial structure of the league already captures that. If we want the League to do more, for the sport to be more, a simple thing needs to happen - people need to watch this sport that we love, a lot more of them.

We should expect a full press release from Fox some time today, as the source data was from one of their official twitter accounts. That will be included when it is made public.

The game is on Fox, as in Q13/113. That means live, broadcast HD soccer in middle of the day. Last year's UEFA Champions League Final drew a "massive" rating of 1.0 (basically equal to MLS Cup Final on cable). This year with teams much more well known in the United States the ratings should be better, but for all the talk about how popular soccer is in America, it would help if people actually watched it when it is offered at the highest club level.

If you are a partisan of one of the clubs SB Nation has the place for you to go. Busby Babe covers Manchester United, this season's friendly opponent while Barca Blaugranes are the place for Barcelona action. If you root for those teams please give them some of your attention. It shouldn't surprise but both places have Seattle based writers.

Those that are just interested in the match and like our community can chat about it here, and read the neutral look from SB Nation Soccer's extraordinary preview. Pregame is at 11AM, kick at 11:45AM here locally. Tune into Fox, the big Fox.

While #TheTrialist earned the fame, and the contract, the Seattle Sounders have had several other players into camp at various points over the past few years who are now scattered in the lower divisions of the USSF. These players are in the NASL (Division 2), USLPro (Div 3) and the PDL (Div 4). With Seattle lacking some depth these days and the ability to get a loan for one of these players being fairly simple, it may be time to start tracking their performance in these other leagues. The list is not yet complete, but includes a few players whom Seattle owns their MLS rights. Others would require more complicated transactions.

Normally we will update based on the games within the last week, but at this time let's just see how they have performed in the first month+ of their league seasons.

O'Brien and Wallace are dealing with injuries. If there are other former trialists still playing within the USSF system that should be added to the list please let us know.

As you can see in today's linklove post via Dizzo, Ben Massey at Eight Six Forever has a post up looking at MLS' new Canadian player quota for Canadian teams and comparing it to the lack of opportunities for Canadian coaches.

This is a topic I'm not particularly qualified to write about, but sitting as we do just down the road from Vancouver — Canada's finest metropolis — and having friends and family strewn through the northern Douglas Fir, Canadian soccer is of some interest to me. And one thing that's always struck me is the almost total dependence in Canada on the US Soccer structure.

A quick look at the Wikipedia page for the Canadian Soccer pyramid should be enough to make any fan of the beautiful game north of the border weep into their Kokanee. The top of the 'Canadian' pyramid is MLS, a US league where the three top Canadian teams will be playing once the Impact enter the league next season. Below that is NASL, the breakaway league that's struggling to get sanction from US Soccer, much less the Canadian Soccer Association, and will have only a single Canadian team (maybe) in FC Edmonton.

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You know those kids that wear the Negro League Baseball caps? So you ask them about Satchel Paige and they look at you like you are the idiot? Or those that wear rugby shirts, and yet they don't know about the Super League? Those guys that absolutely love the University of Washington but couldn't talk to you about Don James?

Somewhere, some marketing guru/dork managed to sell a brand. They absorbed a little bit of history, wrapped it up in myth and slapped it on some cotton from Pakistan, or somewhere else and people started buying it. The youth buying these items don't generally know about the history of what they are getting. They like the look, the feel, the myth.

That's the current version of the New York Cosmos.

Quoting from the linked wikipedia (sure to change soon)

Former Cosmos players Pelé and Giorgio Chinaglia were also involved with this group. Pelé announced the club's return in August 2010,

Pele announced the club's return? Really? WHAT Club?

The Cosmos have continued to add dignitaries to their staff. Global soccer icons, and yet... I search league's for information. They are in MLS? Nope. NASL 2.0? Nope. USLPro? Nope, different FCNY there. PDL? Nope. Super Y-league? NPSL? NSSL? NO, no, no.

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Imagine if the World Cup was every single year, but it only featured the best team from every region. Imagine that the best nation from each of Europe and South American entered in the semis of a knockout bracket.

Stop imagining.

You essentially have the Club World Cup. A tourney so minor it makes the Confederations Cup look like a big deal. A tiny 7 team tourney that takes a few regional champions, let’s those in "growth" regions look to play maybe two games against major world teams, and crowns the team at the end the best in the world.

Except that most people don’t really care. Inter Milan had a cake walk, and while they won, do you really think they wanted this trophy more than Serie A, the Cup or Champions League? Would an English team care more about the Carling Cup? Probably.

Can FIFA do anything to make this thing matter more? Almost certainly, and the answer isn’t more prize money. The answer is more teams, and less frequency. Make it a marquee tourney with several of the best teams in the world.

First, cut it back to once every cycle for the summer after the World Cup. This gives more time to actually host the event, and mitigates concerns over interrupting the precious European league calendar. Yes, there will be some tourneys then - Euro qualifiers, the Gold Cup, etc. But not as much stuff going on as there is in early December. Shoe-horning something into a two or three week stretch shouldn’t interfere too much and the sides taking part are scattered over the World. There will never be a perfect time.

Second, take the Champions of the last two regional club championships for everywhere but Oceania. They’ll get only one, as they don’t have any pro teams that take part. This puts the entries at 11. The host nation gets their league champion for 12. Sure, a small tournament could be done with 12 teams in 3 groups with winners and a best second advancing. But would the Euro sides really take it any more seriously with just two of their teams taking part?

So let’s add four more teams. To respect that South American sides have done well in the tourney so far let’s give each of UEFA and CONMEBOL two more. One could give those two slots to the non-winning finalist of the regional championships, but that would not do one of FIFA’s favorite things - growing the game.

Instead, let’s take the last two Europa League and Copa Sudamericana winners. For Europa several winners have come from non-traditional soccer powers, and for Sudamericana it would provide an additional reward to winning a touch tourney generally dominated by teams from Argentina and Brazil. Oh, and those FMF sides that get into Libertadores and Sudamericana? If they win, they go to the new Club World Cup.

That’s 16 teams, which fits into a very tight two weeks, or a relatively easy three. A week for pre-tourney training in the host nation(s) would mean that soccer fans in say Canada (if they hosted) would get to see 4 top Euro sides, 4 top South Americans, 2 Asia, 2 Africa, 2 North American, 1 Oceania and their league/cup winner.

How would such a tournament look?

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Fox Soccer Channel has elected to show the Club World Cup as Liverpool-Fulham is snowed under, so get thee to a television set to see if Africa can make history! Well, Africa already has made history, as only European and South American teams have ever made it to the final of a Club World Cup. But if they win, more history, right?

Plus, if Inter Milan lose, Rafael Benitez has almost certainly lost his job, which is good for a laugh. If you're not an Interista, that is. Actually, probably not even then, as most Inter supporters want him gone too.

Where do you come down? Calling for Rafa's head? Cheering on Mazembe to history? Love the Nerazzurri?