WNBA Is Playing It All Wrong
Comments (7)
If a Bird knocks down a game-winning jumper in the Amazon Rainforest that is the opening weekend of the NFL season, does anyone hear or see it?
If the Bird in question is Larry Bird, yes.
But not when it's Sue Bird using a screen (an illegal, moving screen) from league MVP Lauren Jackson, crossing over and nailing a shot from just beyond the free throw line to give the Seattle Storm a thrilling 79-77 win in the WNBA Finals opener Sunday afternoon on ABC.
Jackson scored 26 points and the Storm took a one-game lead over the Atlanta Dream but outside of the 15,084 fans at the game no one watched. Instead, the majority of Americans were barbecuing or eating pizza and enjoying the first full day of NFL games.
ABC chose to broadcast Sunday’s game in search of anti-football eyeballs, which makes sense. Football is so popular in America that targeting a different audience is the only way to pull ratings without an NFL television contract.
They did once try to turn the Geico cavemen into a sitcom but ABC isn’t dumb. It knows competing for the same target audience as NFL broadcasts would murder its ratings. But a look at the numbers shows the WNBA is ratings suicide already.
Even after a 73-percent increase from 2008 to 2009, the league still only averaged 548,000 viewers and a 0.4 rating for last year’s finals matchup between Indiana and Phoenix, according to the Michigan news site MLive.com.
In comparison, “juice head”-filled Jersey Shore, a show depicting some of the most ignorant minds in America, earned a 3.3 rating amongst the ideal target audience for networks: 18-49 year olds.
Even ESPN – the self-proclaimed Worldwide Leader of Sports, with its endless sports information cycle that reaches nearly every American sports fan – hasn’t been able to create significant interest in the WNBA -- it's widely speculated that the Walt Disney conglomerate that operates ABC and ESPN only took on the upstart WNBA to appease the NBA.
Then again, the WNBA isn’t helping itself either.
Who in their right mind would schedule the beginning of a championship series in the middle of the day on the first NFL Sunday? Why not build anticipation for an extra two days and play the game Tuesday, in the same time slot Game 2 is scheduled for?
Instead of going up against the NFL -- the biggest sports broadcasting juggernaut outside of the FIFA World Cup -- on its opening weekend, the WNBA Finals could have opened against Tuesday night’s lineup of Wipeout and a repeat of Glee.
For upstart leagues to succeed they have to either carve a niche audience or place a comparable product on the floor, field or ice. And the WNBA is not a comparable basketball product. It’s like bottling bath water, adding carbonation and trying to compete against Coca-Cola.
Viewers have no interest in watching an inferior product -- just ask the USFL, XFL or Arena leagues.
I’m not saying women should only play basketball if there’s a hoop in the kitchen, but athletically they don’t belong in the same gym.
Give me a ball-handler, a 6-foot-5 semi-athlete and three other average male pickup players from any major college or university across the land and I’ll give you a team that will challenge, if not beat, a WNBA team.
In college, I twice had the opportunity to play against Nikki McCray, a two-time SEC Player of the Year and All-American at the University of Tennessee, as she prepared for the 2005 WNBA season.
Even though I played baseball and was only an average athlete and occasional pickup basketball player, I was just as good as, if not better than, the WNBA All-Star and U.S. Olympic gold medalist. She was a better shooter than anyone on the court, but everyone playing against her was more agile and could jump higher.
Without comparable athletes, the audience isn’t going to come to the WNBA. The women’s league has to search out an audience but it also has to at least give itself a chance.
Trying to schedule your championship series opener against the Goliath that is the NFL means that Sue Bird can knock down game-winners forward, backward -- even underwater -- and still remain lost in the rainforest with no one ever discovering she exists.
To reach reporter Shotgun Spratling, click here.
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Comments
A testament to the accuracy of your opinion is that in this week's Sports Illustrated, the mention of the Storm's title win was relegated to "For the Record"--the same section where they list arrests and deaths. The only thing more sad than having no female professional basketball league at all, is having one that no one in their right mind would waste an evening tuning in to.
[...] WNBA Is Playing It All Wrong [...]
The NFL reported last weekend was the most watched weekend since 1987.
Even a regular nba finals game would not be able to compete with an NFL opening weekend let alone a WNBA game, I think the WNBA needs a Superstar to market their game, if you look at the most popular womens sports, Tennis, Gymnastics, Figure Skating, they put their athletes in commercial, on wheaties boxes, and have their own sportswear line. You see Serena Williams face everywhere and Sue Bird just has as many accomplishments with the Gold Medals, Uconn titles, WNBA titles, yet she is still not a household name like Serena.
@pecrawley - I agree with Simmons idea in theory. Something that would differentiate the WNBA product would help, but then that means female basketball players growing up would have to also modify their game in order to potentially make it to the professional level. I don't think that should happen. Plus, modifications don't always mean success (XFL, Arena Leagues).
@MTowle - Actually, for the majority of the first half of the 20th century, the Negro Leagues were the inferior league, but that had more to do with the business side than the athletic product on the field. In the 10-12 years before the re-breaking of the color barrier by Jackie Robinson, the Negro Leagues East-West All-Star Game often drew more fans than the MLB ASG. Baseball definitely suffered robbing generations of fans from seeing the best players from competing with each other.
I'm also not saying the WNBA needs to prove itself to me. I know that the WNBA has "ballers." I've been to games, including the Dream's first franchise win. The games are fun to attend. However, my problem is with the league. Only 15,000-20,000 fans can fit in an arena. Millions upon millions can watch a television broadcast, so why would the league try to compete with the NFL kickoff weekend? They know, you know, I know, that the WNBA is an inferior product. They have to set themselves apart and going up against the NFL is definitely not going to do it.
By the logic of this column, major league baseball was for decades also an "inferior" sport, due to the fact that until the late 1940s black players were excluded from the sport. The sport did suffer due to its racist practices, but it was still high-level baseball. Sadly, there seem to be a never ending chorus of male voices concerned with the WNBA somehow proving itself to their satisfaction. Less sadly, thousands of male and female fans who attend the games are able to enjoy the WNBA for what it is, a great game played by the world's best female athletes.
[...] WNBA Is Playing It All WrongNeon TommyInstead, the majority of Americans were barbecuing or eating pizza and enjoying the first full day of NFL games. ABC chose to broadcast Sunday's game in … [...]
Bill Simmons had an idea last week: make the WNBA in some way different from the NBA so it isn't such a straight comparison (which the WNBA will always lose). Change the rules, lower the baskets, put 6 people on the court at a time, whatever. The more differentiated it is, the better. Because, like you said, the NBA is clearly a superior product right now and nobody wants to watch the generic version of a major sport.
[...] WNBA Is Playing It All WrongNeon Tommy… in the WNBA — it's widely speculated that the Walt Disney conglomerate that operates ABC and ESPN only took on the upstart WNBA to appease the NBA. …and more » [...]
[...] WNBA Is Playing It All WrongNeon TommyI'm not saying women should only play basketball if there's a hoop in the kitchen, but athletically they don't belong in the same gym. …and more » [...]