Great games and teams

I have an acid test for determining a sport's popularity.

“Quick, name the defending champion of such-and-such.”

Most sports fans have no trouble remembering Auburn is the reigning college football national-champion, or that the Green Bay Packers won the most-recent Super Bowl.

Ask any 100 sports fans who won at Wimbledon or the U.S. Open golf tournament just this summer, and I'd bet you don't get as many correct replies.

But I suspect people will remember the Women's World Cup soccer champion and runner-up for quite a while.

That Japan-U.S. match Sunday, and the two weeks that led up to it for the American team, was one of those lightning bolts in sports. A lot of people hitched their attention to that event. The Nielsen overnight rating of 8.6 on ESPN for the final was a huge one, especially since it was on cable and on a Sunday afternoon in summer.

That's a bigger rating than the World Series averaged on network television last year. It almost doubled the rating of the Stanley Cup Final Game 7, which was in prime-time on NBC, and had the biggest American TV rating for an NHL game in almost 40 years.

It was a Sunday afternoon in July, and I was at home watching a women's soccer game on television. So were many other friends I know. Male friends. Sports fans. And we liked it. It was the second most-watched daytime telecast in cable history, trailing only the 2011 Rose Bowl.

There were about 100 people watching the penalty kicks conclusion of Sunday's game on a TV in the lobby of the North Liberty Recreation Center before Prime Time League basketball play began.

Was it because this was a compelling event with two weeks of built-up drama? Yes. Was it because the U.S. was a talented team with a pleasing style of play? Surely.

Was it because we have so few national teams to get behind, and were given one we felt was worthy of our attention? Definitely.

I would offer another reason. There just aren't that many female sports figures or teams in this country that are must-see TV, and we want more.

The WNBA, LPGA and women's tennis just don't have them right now. There are no Chris Evert-Martina Navratilova rivalries of genuine greatness.

Women and men alike want to see captivating female athletes. I was at John Deere Classics when Michelle Wie played there in 2005 and 2006. Had she contended or even made the 36-hole cut, she'd have been celebrated nationally.

If Danica Patrick or a fellow female ever wins the Indianapolis 500 or any NASCAR race, auto racing will zoom to record levels of popularity

The Olympics - Winter and Summer - are dependent on female athletes for interest. Is any Olympic event more popular than women's gymnastics? What would the Winter Games be without women skaters and skiers?

Even women's curling became a cult favorite at the Vancouver Olympics. A year-and-a-half later, I still can't believe how much of it I watched.

This essay was never going to be yet another diatribe about soccer and its place in the U.S. Its growth the last few decades has been steady, one of those things that sneaks up on you unless you're in the middle of it.

Last Wednesday noon, I was at a Buffalo Wild Wings in Cedar Rapids. Nine high school boys were there with American flags in tow, intently and enthusiastically watching the U.S.' semifinal game on big-screen TV. That said more to me than any Nielsen rating.

But this column isn't about soccer. We like great stories. We like athletes representing us who embody things we like, such as charisma and intestinal fortitude. But those things don't get any attention unless the games themselves are chock full of tension, unpredictability, and heroics.

The Women's World Cup had all of that, and in large doses. Japan's win over the U.S. on Sunday was a classic match between two admirable teams. It was sport at its best.