Good news for WNBA fans: the league that has been seen as the less-cared-about stepsister of the NBA is actually on the up. Attendance for the games are up, TV ratings are up by 20 percent, and WNBA.com has seen a spike in traffic. Merchandise sales are up 36 percent an the league’s 14 teams have seen 46 games sold out this season, too.
Reports are chalking it up to a few key points:
- There’s less NBA control over the WNBA…which is probably a good thing, since the men’s league doesn’t seem to have it’s act together. WNBA leadership are adding more non-NBA team owners to its rosters. Here in LA, we have two women owners of the LA Sparks who are the first to independently purchase a sports team — one’s a teacher, the other’s an attorney.
- There are a lot of exciting, new players. I mean, when the WNBA started, there were a ton of great players… many of them are STILL PLAYING. Look at Candace Parker (of the LA Sparks, of course), who was the second player to dunk in a regular-season game (Lisa Leslie was the first, of course)… can’t you hear the crowd chanting, Rookie of the Year?:
Then some of you may remember the big old fight earlier this season that suspended 10 players and Detroit assistant coach Rick Mahorn… lots of people were paying attention (that’s basically why people watch hockey, right?).
- I personally think WNBA.com traffic is up because the mainstream sports media doesn’t give an eff about women’s basksetball. Right now, the WNBA is playing their post season. Not one of the major sports websites have any results on the top of the fold of the front page right now. Granted, this is the last week of the regular season in baseball, too, so it’s very baseball-centric. Also, there were no WNBA games tonight, but the playoffs begin tomorrow with the Sparks playing the San Antonio Silver Stars and the NY Liberty playing the Detroit Shock. In fact NBC sports has an NBA news section lower on the page with noWNBA news — the NBA is out of season. The LA Times mentions the Sparks tonight… waaaaay down below. Check out screenshots of the top national sports sites below. Hopefully, the screenshots will be different tomorrow night after playoff games #1 for the east and the west.
Yeah, I somehow missed it, but Sarah Haskins tackles advertising’s stupidity when it comes to selling cleaning products, a pet peeve of mine since I was a young girl.
Michelle Obama is blogging on her fight to ensure equal pay for women… no, it the Lilly Ledbetter Act still hasn’t passed. (If you’re not familiar with the act, there’s some info here and here). An excerpt:
Pay equity is a major issue at stake in this election. Today, across the country, women are paid only 77 cents for every dollar a man earns, and minority women are paid even less for equal work. This isn’t only an economic issue. This is a family issue. When women are paid less than men, their kids pay the price.
Are you tired of wearing ugly clothes, and, ugh… reading, all for the sake of looking intelligent? Have no fear, McDonalds is here! With their new lattes, you can shove some highly sugared, overly caffeinated, crap juice down your gullet at anytime without sacrificing your looks (you know, because that’s all you’re allowed to be judged on).
Two of my favorite comedy ladies, Amy Poehler and Tina Fey, opened this season’s first SNL as Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin, respectively. They basically addressed the fact that the right has suddenly embraced the concept of sexism, and even then, not all things are equal.
But other than that, the rest of the show was kind of a disaster (well, the T-Mobile parody was kinda funny, actually). Why do they insist on having athletes host the show when they’re not truly captivating in front of a camera? And why can’t Lorne just let some characters die? And are they STILL not going to hire a black dude, or at least a half-black dude to play Barry O? Would the show have been funnier if Obama came on as scheduled?
Well, at least the bar was set low for the rest of the season to be funnier. I have faith! I really do!!
Look at this! I had every program in my dock open and my work computer is still going strong!!! haha
My open programs: iChat, iTunes, Safari, Word, Xcel, Firefox, Entourage, Notepad, Preview, Photoshop, InDesign, Extensis Suitcase, Adobe Reader… my laptop at home would have cried.
