San Francisco, September 7, 2007—A new North American women’s professional soccer league, under the temporary title of Women’s Soccer LLC, has been established in the United States. The league will initially include teams based in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New Jersey/New York, St. Louis, and Washington, DC, and play will begin in 2009. Shearman & Sterling is representing the Women’s Soccer Initiative, Inc. (WSII), which developed the league's business model and is enabling investors to launch the league.
The league plans an 18-month marketing campaign during the Women’s World Cup this month and the Olympic Games next summer, leading up to the 2009 launch date. The league will work with Soccer United Marketing (the commercial affiliate of Major League Soccer, the US men’s league) as its exclusive representative for the sale of national corporate sponsorship and consumer product licenses.
The league is expected to attract a new soccer audience as well as die-hard fans of the defending Olympic gold-medalist US National Team and the Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA), which suspended operation in 2003. According to the US Soccer Federation, soccer continues to experience unprecedented growth in the United States—particularly among America’s youth.
Shearman & Sterling attorneys advising the WSII reflect the breadth of legal work the firm provided in support of the start-up of this international league. Attorneys from the firm’s offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco and New York combined to contribute experience in corporate structure, tax, antitrust, intellectual property and more. They include Of Counsel Vicki Veenker (MP-IP), partners Creighton Condon (NY-MA) and Beau Buffier (NY-AT), counsel Daniel Glazer (NY-IPT), Susan Reiss (NY-IP) and Ansgar Simon (NY-TX), associates Jennifer Boyle-Devine (NY-MA), Jill Frizzley (NY-BR), Bryn Jedlic (SF-MA), Joseph Tong (NY-MA), Lucia Guh-Siesel (MP-IP), Christy Lai (MP-IP), Kelly Burgesser (NY-CM), Elena Rubinov (NY-MA), Michel Werthenschlag (NY-MA), George Milton (LO-AT) and Emily Griffen (SF-LT), and legal assistants James Lik (NY-MA), Emily Priest and Timothy Sun (NY-MA).