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 no WNBA 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.
NBC Sports
ESPN
Fox Sports
Sports Illustrated
Yahoo Sports
LA Times
