Hawaii has been caught in the crossfire of a sports gender-equity battle and has become, as in most cases of collateral damage, unfairly victimized by it.
The condition of the artificial turf at Aloha Stadium was ostensibly the reason for canceling Sunday’s soccer match scheduled between the U.S. Women’s National Team and the Trinidad &Tobago team.
But it’s only part of a larger confrontation over issues of fair treatment of men and women athletes. As legitimate a gripe that may be for the USWNT to raise, this was not the way to do it.
To recap from the weekend’s debacle: Late Saturday officials for the team decided to pull the plug on the match. According to an open letter from the team published online, the governing United States Soccer Federation ultimately concurred, although the stadium previously had been deemed acceptable.
The reason: The field surface is “just not good enough,” said Carli Lloyd, one of the stars of the reigning World Cup champions.
This came as a disappointment to the thousands of fans who had been planning to watch the game only hours later, and after days of promotions leading up to it.
It’s worse than that, of course. It comes down to a breach of the contract that had been signed between the Aloha Stadium Authority and the United States Soccer Federation.
Although all ticket purchasers can get refunds (there’s a full explainer at the stadium’s box-office line, 486-9300, option 4), that should not be the only recourse Hawaii pursues. The authority should go to court if necessary to recoup the far greater damage this standoff has done to the state’s reputation as a sports destination.
The federation is accountable for signing off on the condition of the field, and the team holds some responsibility for not interceding much sooner than it did. If there were repairs to be made, the stadium should make them and could have done so had the authority been given adequate notice.
The team’s chief complaint is that once players first saw the field on Saturday, they “finally saw, for the first time, how bad the stadium’s field truly was,” according to a post they published on The Players’ Tribune, a website that hosts first-person accounts from athletes.
“There were sharp rocks ingrained all over the field,” they wrote. “The artificial turf was actually pulling up out of the ground, and the turf itself was both low-grade and aging. … Usually, for what it’s worth, the Federation will go out to the venue to check out the field months in advance. To our knowledge, this was not done, and the field had only been inspected days prior.”
The federation should treat women’s teams “equally as our male counterparts,” they added.
They’re right about that, but they need to get those assurances well in advance of any contractual agreements they make.
Sports tourism is an important, budding sector of the state’s tourism industry. The Hawaii Tourism Authority has developed a sports marketing program aimed at realizing the estimated $150 million in annual economic impact from events that generate hours of invaluable media exposure for the islands.
Instead, the attention Hawaii got was disparagement in international coverage, all for a confrontation that should have been averted at the outset.
There are lessons to be learned here. One is that officials must reckon with conditions of this aging sports venue, if it’s to be a part of a sports marketing campaign.
But if sports tourism is to deliver on its promise, Hawaii also must see that it’s taken seriously as a business partner. The Aloha Stadium is as good an arena as any to make a stand.
