'Goals Gone Wild'

[savafan]

Call me crazy, but I think this is a great way to market women's sports. WNBA, are you listening?


http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/...38/detail.html

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. -- The editor of a community college newspaper is being criticized because of a front-page photo and headline, Kansas City, Mo., television station KMBC reported.

The Nov. 16 issue of the Johnson County (Kan.) Community College newspaper featured two female soccer players showing their sports bras. The headline read, "Goals Gone Wild," and a photo caption said there were four good reasons to support the team.

Carl Heinrich, the school's athletic director, said he was shocked when he heard about the paper.

"I don't think it portrays the image of what our athletes are," Heinrich said.

"What we believe is appropriate or inappropriate is up to everybody's interpretation," said Joshua Seiden, the paper's editor in chief.

Seiden said the ladies in the picture saw the photo before it was printed and that neither of the women have complained to him about it.

[deltachi8]

and here i thought this was a thread about the new NHL

[westofyou]

Camille Paglia for commissioner eh?

The pornstarring of current society applies another coat.

[Johnny Footstool]

Any of you guys want JCCC women's soccer tickets? I can hook you up.

Bicycle kicks cost extra.

BTW - I think this is a great example of marketing to your target audience (college males).

[RedFanAlways1966]

No problems here. But I doubt that my opinion is non-slanted.

On the serious side: I think it might have gone over better if they had left out the caption saying "4 good reasons...". However, It is funny and a great play on words IMO. And I guarantee you that some of the ads in the local paper are probably closer to porn than that picture/article. Not to mention TV shows. And as Johnny said, they are doing a great job of marketing to their audience.

[Yachtzee]

Any of you guys want JCCC women's soccer tickets? I can hook you up.

Bicycle kicks cost extra.

BTW - I think this is a great example of marketing to your target audience (college males).

And to think, for five months I worked down the street from JCCC. I could have been watching soccer instead of going back to the corporate apartment!

[Caveat Emperor]

I make no comment other than to note that it never ceases to amaze me how differently our society views women who are openly expressive about their sexuality as opposed to men who are the same way.

[GAC]

I make no comment other than to note that it never ceases to amaze me how differently our society views women who are openly expressive about their sexuality as opposed to men who are the same way.

I see far more women openly expressing their sexuality on TV, commercials, and various ads, then I do men. That's my point. Men don't have to portray that image in order to "sell"/prostitue themselves or the sport... but women do? I disagree.

I agree with what Roy further added, and also woy's wifes argument/position. This is what it takes to get society to recognize the authenticity /value of women's sports?...the Coor's Swedish Bikini Team?

I'm opposed to it regardless of the sex. But it is viewed differently because parents (epecially fathers) are more protective of their daughters. Greater repercussions for the woman IMO, than the man. I guess it all boils down to how one views sex, their individual values, and opinion of it.

It's just men... generally speaking, they only care what the package looks like on the outside.

[Roy Tucker]

Yeah, if I had a teenage daughter that wanted to play soccer, I'd be sure to send her there.

Nothing like clean wholesome image and a place I'd like my daughter to be.

In case there is any doubt, I think it's in very poor taste and no fine way I'd send my kid there.

Having daughters gives you a whole different outlook on things.

[GAC]

Yeah, if I had a teenage daughter that wanted to play soccer, I'd be sure to send her there.

Nothing like clean wholesome image and a place I'd like my daughter to be.

In case there is any doubt, I think it's in very poor taste and no fine way I'd send my kid there.

Having daughters gives you a whole different outlook on things.

Exactly! My daughter is very big on athletics and excels very well because of her hard work and dedication. I'd be furious if one of the girls in that picture was my daughter, with a T-shirt that says "Big Johnson" across her chest. Why not just lay on your back in the middle of the soccer field with your legs spread wide open? One less classless then the other? Same message IMO.

Stuff like this sets women sports back. It is not the image that woman sports needs to promote to get recognition.

[Johnny Footstool]

Danica Patrick showed half of her rear in a recent photo shoot. No double-entendres, nothing to market except her own assets.

Compared to that, this ad is pretty harmless.

And it's not like this is a required photo shoot. The girls in the ad volunteered and had no problem with the idea. I don't think it speaks ill of the school itself.

[Johnny Footstool]

I make no comment other than to note that it never ceases to amaze me how differently our society views women who are openly expressive about their sexuality as opposed to men who are the same way.

Yep.

And we're also quick to cluck about men being sexist and viewing women as objects, but how many women watch baseball because they're fascinated with statistics, and how many do it because they just like looking at the players?

My wife is a huge fan of Alex Rodriguez. And she hates baseball.

[Roy Tucker]

My comment was made in the context that this is an advertisement for a college amateur team.

I view college as an extension of youth and character building. If I'm sending my daughter to college to play soccer, it's for character and physical development in a healthy, positive, and constructive way. I don't view posing for some blatantly sexual ad as part of that and I wouldn't want my daughter to have any part of a program like that. At least while she is under my sphere of influence. Women's college sports have a hard enough time being taken seriously. We might as well skip the soccer part and have them do pole dances at the local strip club.

I'd have the same problem with it if it were a calendar of the college baseball guys posing shirtless holding big bats saying "look at my Big Johnson".

Once they turn pro or turn 21, then it's a whole new ballgame. Hey, you want to flaunt your body, you're an adult, go for it. But there is a time and a place for everything.

[Caveat Emperor]

I view college as an extension of youth and character building. If I'm sending my daughter to college to play soccer, it's for character and physical development in a healthy, positive, and constructive way. I don't view posing for some blatantly sexual ad as part of that and I wouldn't want my daughter to have any part of a program like that. At least while she is under my sphere of influence. Women's college sports have a hard enough time being taken seriously. We might as well skip the soccer part and have them do pole dances at the local strip club.

All things considered, women running around in various states of undress or wearing as little clothing as was socially permissible while out in public is a far more accurate description of what I remember my college experience. But, that was Tulane for you.

I think the far more telling thing is what you point out in the last part, though -- that women's sports generate so little heat with fans that teams are forced to resort to marketing themselves as sex symbols in order generate any kind of interest. I imagine that'd be very difficult to deal with as a woman who actually had talent to do something amazing but was forced to choose between obscurity and objectification with no real middle ground.

[Unassisted]

Doesn't bother me so much, since it was an impromptu photo and not an organized marketing effort. Especially since the paper took the extraordinary step of getting the permission of the subjects of the photo to run the photo. This is tame stuff compared to some of the photo calendars that women's sports teams in other countries resort to for fundraising and attention.

Surprises me a lot though, that this ran as a half-page 4-color above-the-fold photo on the front page of the school paper. I'd think the paper's advisor might have taken some heat for that choice. Some of the people who are bothered by such things are politicians and alums who are apt to have an impact on the school's finances.