BOCA RATON, Fla. — Moments after her team completed a 10-city exhibition tour with a 4-1 victory over China, United States midfielder Megan Rapinoe fielded a question Saturday night about the latest attempt to start a women's professional soccer league in this country.
"What is the name of the league?" Rapinoe asked amid the postgame din of a still-screaming crowd of 10,493 at a football stadium on the campus of Florida Atlantic University.
The National Women's Soccer League, Rapinoe was told, the stylish playmaker having been too busy to catch the official announcement at halftime. The eight-team league is scheduled to begin play in the spring of 2013.
Rapinoe, whose first-half blast from 40 yards helped the Olympic champion women's team finish the year 28-3-1, nodded and acknowledged that it was just the most basic of many questions she and her other high-profile teammates had about the start-up venture.
"There's a lot we don't know so far, so it's hard to say what we expect out of it," Rapinoe said. "I think having a league and having an opportunity to play consistently, if it's sustainable and it's something that's good for not only this team but the next 100 players, would be good. We need to know a lot more."
Two previous American-based women's leagues have failed over the past decade, so there is understandable wariness on the highly popular women's team, which has captivated many fans in this country with its stirring games in the World Cup and Olympics the last two years.
Neither the Women's United Soccer Association, which folded in 2003, nor Women's Professional Soccer, which ceased operations in May, could survive beyond three seasons.
The W.U.S.A. was reported to have suffered losses totaling $100 million, while poor attendance and operational infighting kept W.P.S. from gaining traction.
So what has to happen this time to make the concept work?
"I don't know that answer," said the American striker Abby Wambach, whose two goals Saturday night gave her 152 for her career, moving her to within six of Mia Hamm's international record. "I guess we'll have to wait and find out. I have no idea."
Wambach, who combined with the team's rising star, Alex Morgan, to tie a 21-year-old national team record for combined goals in a calendar year, was a featured member of the troubled Boca Raton-based magicJack franchise in the W.P.S.
Even with U.S. Soccer taking the administrative lead in the new league and vowing to subsidize the salaries of up to 24 players from the national team, Wambach remains circumspect.
"Honestly, it's happened two times," Wambach said. "It's risen and fallen two times. Those two times I was wrong."
Kate Markgraf, a former defender on the national team and now an analyst for NBC, is optimistic the latest economic model will be more sustainable than the previous two incarnations.
The Canadian Soccer Association and the Mexican Federation of Football have also vowed to subsidize salaries for up to 16 members of their respective national teams who join the new league.
"That's the model that works in Germany, in France and in Sweden," Markgraf said, "where it's supported by the federation, anchored by the federation. That's just right now how the sporting landscape is for women and women in soccer. This might be the way to go."
But whatever the fate of the new league, the popularity of the current American team clearly remains strong, although not mighty enough to come close to filling a 30,000-seat stadium for a friendly against a modest opponent like China.
Wambach and her teammates played before average crowds of more than 15,000 during their three-and-a-half-month post-Olympics barnstorming tour around the United States. Along the way, there were three sellouts, including one in Wambach's hometown, Rochester, N.Y.
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