What happened? Could this be the biggest ball drop in marketing history?

So i was just flipping through the tube and ran across this HBO documentary on the 1999 womens US soccer team. Do you remember this team. As I started to watch, I remembered what a magical moment that year was in not only womens soccer but sports in general. We all know the names....Brandy Chastain, Brianna Scurry, Mia Hamm, Christine Lilly. Up to that point, I had no interest in soccer what so ever. I do not think I had ever watched a game in my life. Then out of nowhere, everybody was watching this team. I,m not talking about a casual interest either. They were like instant rock stars. I would get excited about each upcoming game and it was damn good!
So they started to talk about the 1999 World Cup....you remember the one where they won in overtime against China. If you didn't see the game, you surely saw one of the most famous pictures in all of women sports. So you have a sport that drew like a South Alabama basketball game all of a sudden the hottest ticket in the US. They sold out Giant stadium and the Rose Bowl...over 210,000 tickets to womens soccer. There were face painted pre-teen girls by the droves. Tailgating in the parking lot. Soccer balls in every kids backpack. This sport was on the cusp of becoming NASCAR big. Leagues were sprouting up in every city. THEN OUT OF NOWHERE......GONE!
How do you lose that much momentum? How do you go from obscurity to the world stage and back to obscurity in less than 2 years? Did the marketing department just forget to show up? Where are all those fans?
I dare anyone to name one single player on this years US womens soccer team. So to who ever is in charge of womens soccer........It was a hell of a one-hit-wonder!