ABSTRACT
This chapter has two objectives: the first objective is to chart a more accurate empirical picture of the development of migratory trails into the National College Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I between 2000 and 2010. The second objective is to offer some explanations for this migration based upon the argument that women's soccer in the US is a zone of prestige for the game around the world. The chapter deals with an examination of some of the historical developments in women's soccer in the US. The constituent features of global sports figurations are now well-established within the corpus of work on globalization, global sport and global sports migration, as is the figurational tradition in the sub-discipline of sociological research on sport. The chapter also engages in further analysis of wider political issues such as the foreign label attached to soccer in the US and the place of America in the global sporting order.
