Megan Rapinoe, the lavender-haired icon of women’s soccer, maintains that green is the key to her sport’s sustainability.
"For me, it's about the Benjis," she said.
Women’s soccer engages the U.S. every four years, then disappears for most fans like a comet leaving the solar system. In the wake of the Americans’ record-setting fourth World Cup title Sunday, the hard part remains: the weekly work of boosting the National Women’s Soccer League, where average attendance remains at a minor league level.
Fans have not handed over a sufficient supply of $100 bills displaying Benjamin Franklin's portrait, and sponsors and broadcasters have not made enough of the six-, seven- and eight-figure agreements needed for the NWSL to rise to the level of men's Major League Soccer.