Maybe, according to this article out of an Atlanta paper, a city which will host three women's professional teams in 2010 (soccer, softball, and basketball). Chicago has just as many. [Not sure if they are counting football at all, though. I know there are at least two leagues for women's football but I do not know if they qualify as professional or how that designation is made.]
Anyway, some are hopeful that it's a good time (recession notwithstanding) for professional women's sports. That perhaps people are getting a little sick of male professional athletes behaving badly. That fans don't always like to see their favorite athletes getting arrested (guess we better not look too hard at Diana Taurasi then!) and that female athletes are generally seen as more accessible and more willing to do promotion and hang out with kids, etc.
While I would love 2010 to be a great year for women's professional sports that have no historically been so successful, or even those that are rebuilding (like golf), I have certain problems with some images of these athletes as all goody-goody and and smiley and nurturing to our nation's youth. Not that I am advocating for the Diana Taurasi image, but do female athletes have to do all these things to grow their sport?
I suppose it is better than taking off their clothes which grows some things but not their sports' popularity.
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