Can New York City have too much of a beautiful thing?
Women's Professional Soccer, the matter-of-factly named league that kicks off next April, had its first round of player allocations on Tuesday.
In a curious process that resembled first-year dorm selection in college, the league tried to match the stated geographical preferences of 21 members of the gold medal-winning U.S. women's national team with the desires of the seven inaugural franchises.
Sky Blue FC, which will play at Rutgers University, should be ecstatic that national team captain Christie Rampone, her New Jersey neighbor Heather O'Reilly and the Hawaiian-born Natasha Kai have aligned as the backbone of their club.
But they may not be the only new beautiful-game practitioners in town.
Over the weekend, the Mets announced their desire to bring an MLS team to New York to rival the Red Bulls by 2011. The team would most likely play in Queens or Brooklyn and have its own, soccer-specific stadium.
The question is inevitable: Can New York and New Jersey support this much soccer? The answer, I think, could ultimately prove counterintuitive.
It's true that WPS's predecessor, the WUSA, fell apart in 2003 after just three seasons. But the new league seems determined to align closely with MLS and follow its slow-growth business model to avoid a similar collapse.
Young stars such as O'Reilly, who inherited Mia Hamm's No. 9 jersey for the U.S., and Kai, as famous for her 19 tattoos as she is for her improvising, attacking style, will try to generate excitement where the WUSA's New York Power could not.
Major League Soccer, meanwhile, seems to be emerging healthily from its training-wheel stages. In New York, this has meant the arrival next year of Red Bull Arena, a mouthwatering soccer-only stadium on the PATH line in Harrison, N.J., along with the potential for more big signings like that of Juan Pablo Angel.
New York, I have always said, is a soccer town looking for an outlet, and I think people who doubt the logic of bringing a second team to a market whose home team ranks eighth out of 14 in attendance are in for a surprise.
First of all, the new Red Bulls stadium, upon its opening, should put the team among the league leaders in attendance. And if the Mets bring another team to an outer borough, it will attract more new fans from those soccer-mad neighborhoods than it will draw fans away from RBNY.
Finally, the inter-town rivalry that would form between the clubs would boost soccer-consciousness in the area as a whole, benefiting all teams in what just might become a soccer renaissance in New York.
New York pro soccer primer
-Cosmos (defunct NASL). New York and East Rutherford, N.J., 1971-1985.
-Metrostars/Red Bulls (MLS). East Rutherford, N.J., 1995-present.
-Power (defunct WUSA). Uniondale, N.Y., 2000-03.
-Sky Blue FC (WPS). Piscataway, N.J., founded 2008.
The Red Bulls face Columbus Thursday night in a match between two of MLS' hottest teams (7 p.m., ESPN2). The Red Bulls (9-7-8) have just one loss in their last eight games.
Columbus (13-6-5) leads MLS with 44 points, but will be without Guillermo Barro Schelotto, who's notched a league-high 18 assists this year.