You may say I’m a dreamer. But I’m not the only one – John Lennon

I myself have never been able to find out what feminism is; I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute. – Rebecca West

I had been planning to write about the underlying business-model dispute in WPS today, and then I saw that Fake Sigi had already chimed in on the topic of marketing WPS as a “cause.”

I’ve said before that there are plenty of reasons to own a sports team or invest in it. You could argue that Barcelona is a “cause,” and it’s sometimes hard to tell if that cause it the “more than a club” philosophy or Keynesian theory on economic debt. (Yes, econ nerds, I know I’m oversimplifying. Bear with me here.)

What we saw in 2011 wasn’t so much “cause” marketing as a different type of ownership. Dan Borislow and Joe Sahlen differ on a few things, but they had some similarities. They were willing to spend money on talent. And their teams were, in part, outlets of their brands. Borislow named the team after his product; Sahlen bought heavily as a league sponsor with naming rights on their stadium.

So when we ask why Abby Wambach has sworn allegiance to Borislow or why other national team players haven’t spoken up about the current legal mess or Ella Masar’s incendiary blog post, are we really asking what these players believe is possible in WPS?

That idea, beyond anything Borislow has done, is seductive. Just find enough wealthy people who are willing to spend money with little in return — at least for now — and you have a league of people enjoying competitive play and relative comfort between World Cup/Olympic cycles.

The question those investors might ask: How long am I expected to lose money, and how much? Anschutz and company sank tens of millions into MLS, but even with their accounting as private as it is, you have to figure they’ve earned a good bit back by selling a lot of teams as their value was soaring.

And future owners likely will need to spend more on a front office staff and other ancillaries than Borislow has. Critique the league’s front office all you want, but the fact is that magicJack benefited a great deal from having an infrastructure in place and from other teams’ marketing efforts. Abby Wambach would’ve drawn just as many fans to her hometown of Rochester if she had been playing for the Washington Freedom or Atlanta Beat or Chicago Red Stars as she did playing for magicJack.

The league also had smartly reached out through social media, a byproduct of the great decision to bring in Amanda Vandervort. The players’ Twitter presences exploded after the World Cup, but you can thank the league’s former management for building up the efforts on that front.

Now a lot of that infrastructure has been depleted by budget cuts. It’s not exactly going to build up during a season with no games and a lot of legal fees.

So when Wambach goes to Kansas City and speaks to a crowd larger than the announced attendance at many magicJack games, then says the league needs a bunch of positivity and wealthy people, is she dreaming?

Signs point to yes. The Washington Freedom, which once boasted Wambach, Japan’s Homare Sawa and France’s Sonia Bompastor, had to move because they didn’t find anyone willing to do what Borislow did. Not even in the wealthy enclaves of McLean and Bethesda, where the Freedom had done outreach for years with the powerful youth soccer clubs. If you can’t get some D.C.-area tech entrepreneur or Capital One executive to gamble a few million on a pro team that would provide coaches and inspiration for a couple of youth juggernauts, what are the odds of finding someone elsewhere?

And Wambach’s plea for unity may come across as a little tone-deaf. Fans are in an uproar: See StarCityFan2’s comment here saying she didn’t seem to care how her teammates were treated. And league backers could respond to her “can’t build something from negativity” comment by asking, “Wait a minute — who’s suing whom here?”

But should we question Wambach’s desire to dream of a time in which WPS gets such backing? Is it really wrong to hope that some combination of Nike, Ellen DeGeneres and some youth soccer phenom-turned-tech CEO will swoop in to build a better league? Do we have to go to Peter Wilt’s souped-up semipro model already?

Perhaps not. But the question in the meantime is how you keep today’s arguments from sweeping away the platform from which tomorrow’s soccer can be launched.

Today’s espnW story hints at the direction the WPS-Borislow legal proceedings will take in the wake of league’s decision to suspend the 2012 season.

A key issue: Would U.S. Soccer allow exhibition games between a magicJack exhibition team and WPS teams? WPS says definitely not. Borislow’s legal team says it wasn’t cut and dried, and in any case, the court transcripts show that the deal wasn’t even dependent on that.

Look at these court transcripts and decide for yourself. First up, the court hearing that was supposed to be a four-hour session on “irreparable harm” but instead became the announcement of the deal:

Then the telephone conversation between the parties and the judge:

I’d love to hear everyone’s comments.

The other news today: Abby Wambach appeared at a celebration in Kansas City, and ESPN’s Mechelle Voepel was there to get a word with her. The quote getting the most attention:

The truth is that the responsibility is all of ours. Nothing rises or fails with one person. We all need to step back, look at ourselves, and take responsibility for all of the things. Nobody is talking about the amazing things Dan did and how he treated his players. Everybody focuses all the attention on the negative. And that’s not how we’re going to get the WPS back and running. You can’t build something great on negativity. It has to be in a positive manner.

That’s not going to calm magicJack critics, who think players were so content with their salaries and creature comforts that they turned a blind eye to the issues raised by the league, the union, Ella Masar and others. And when you have WPS founders like Peter Wilt saying the whole thing needs to be scaled way back, you have to wonder how many other investors would be willing or able to step forward and match the “amazing things” Wambach’s describing.

But Wambach has also called for people to lose the egos and get past the issues that have come between them. Judge Sasser could very well order people to do that next week. We’ll see how that goes. And as one lawyer says in the transcripts, the devil is in the details.

On Jan. 18, I reported the following:

Women’s Professional Soccer averted another court date with magicJack owner Dan Borislow on Wednesday, reaching a deal that allows his team to play an exhibition schedule in 2012 and 2013. Borislow said he has put his temporary injunction suit on hold; the suit was intended to stop the termination of his franchise.

The details of the deal need to be finalized and the plan must be approved by U.S. Soccer.

The Deal was first reported by a mysterious Twitter person who has since deleted the tweets. But it was Borislow who was most enthusiastic about it, though our mysterious eyewitness told the world that “Fitz, O’Sullivan all seemed happy.” (That would be Atlanta Beat owner/WPS board chairman T. Fitz Johnson and WPS CEO Jennifer O’Sullivan, of course.)

News of The Deal even reached Deadspin, thanks to the fabulous (and since-departed) Emma Carmichael, with the classic headline “The Banned Boca Raton Women’s Professional Soccer Team Will Keep Playing In Zombie Form.”

And yet WPS, for its part, never publicly acknowledged such The Deal. The league didn’t acknowledge much of anything.

You may have heard this week that the news has turned a little sour.

In Monday’s conference call about WPS suspending its 2012 season, O’Sullivan addressed The Deal: “What the ownership and league have been struggling to do is put the focus back on the players and this game. We were willing to consider that as an option in order to accomplish that goal.”

This morning, we learned from Beat beat writer William Bretherton that WPS owners were downplaying The Deal. And Johnson thought info about The Deal “was put out when it shouldn’t have been.”

That, of course, is the unfortunate part about going to court. If you’re read all the legal docs that I’ve put out through this site and espnW, you’ll see a lot of things that both parties might not want the public perusing. And The Deal can’t be kept secret when it’s being discussed in a public court hearing. As I said to our mysterious Twitter witness, “FINALLY! The deal is public!!!”

The details, though, were not described in public. And William quotes Philly owner David Halstead as saying WPS and Borislow were on different wavelengths.

Want to know what Dan Borislow has to say about The Deal? Let’s check the motion his legal team filed Monday:

The first paragraph complains that WPS is blaming Borislow for the suspension of the season and, for reasons that aren’t clear to me, boasting that Borislow was likely to win his case. The second paragraph says there’s no point in having a Feb. 1 hearing on an injunction if the 2012 season doesn’t exist, suggesting that the parties meet by telephone instead. (That meeting has apparently taken place.)

Then it gets interesting (emphasis mine):

Further, as the parties reported to the Court at the January 16, 2012 hearing, the parties have already reached a complete settlement of this case on agreed terms, certain of which were read into the record. Notwithstanding the latest announcement by Defendant, it continues to be Plaintiffs’ position that this is a settled matter. The only open issue, that is, U.S. Soccer Federation approval, remains pending, and Defendant has a continuing duty to cooperate in good faith in such efforts. It now, however, appears that defendant is attempting to renege on the settlement.

And then the fourth paragraph says, “Hey, we still have a deal.”

So what have they agreed to do, and what might Judge Sasser — who has already ruled against WPS even on issues that seemed to be cut and dried such as jurisdiction of this case — compel WPS to do?

I’ve written a check to the State of Florida and filled out a request form to get audio recordings of the Jan. 16 hearing and the telephone hearing. It might take a few days, but I’ll let you know.

Dan Borislow won part of his case in Florida, with the court saying WPS improperly terminated his magicJack team while reserving judgment on “irreparable harm” and other issues of the case. A hearing on Jan. 18 will address the rest. (Skip toward the full circuit court ruling if you like.)

This evening, WPS released a statement from CEO Jennifer O’Sullivan:

“We are extremely disappointed with the court’s findings and will consider our legal options.  Mr. Borislow’s abusive behavior and blatant disregard for League rules were a clear breach of contract and led to the Boards’ dismissal of magicJack as a franchise. His statements and actions negatively impacted the league’s business including efforts to attract expansion teams and sponsors, jeopardized player safety and threatened the very integrity of the League.

“WPS owners took several measures to rectify the situation before making the difficult decision to dismiss Mr. Borislow from the League. If the court rules to reinstate the franchise, my fear is that ownership will seriously consider folding the League, thus ending professional soccer for women in the United States.”

No one else has commented today (not to my knowledge, at least — please let me know otherwise), but in checking with several teams, it appears Friday’s draft is still set to go on as scheduled.