You haven’t come all that long a way, baby
IF THE WNBA had a soundtrack, it would be the high-pitched chatter of predominantly female crowds, punctuated by occasional squeals.
The chorus would be the upbeat songs that try so hard to create a festive atmosphere during Sparks games at Staples Center but often echo amid the dark suites and empty seats that testify to the difference between surviving and thriving.
Midway through its 11th season, the WNBA will pause today for its All-Star game at Washington’s Verizon Center. It is the longest-lasting women’s professional sports league in this country and it has given female athletes opportunities their mothers never had.
That’s worth celebrating.
But the WNBA, launched by the NBA in 1997, has reached a critical point. It seems more and more like a noble idea whose time hasn’t come -- and might never arrive.
Viewership of WNBA games on ESPN2 fell by 40,000 from 2005 to an average of 240,462 a game last season. The Sports Business Daily reported last week that the WNBA will get a share of the rights fee ESPN/ABC will pay to the NBA under a new eight-year deal, but ABC will cut its WNBA telecasts from five games a season to two. ESPN2 will televise 18 games, up from 16.
Attendance has declined steadily since a second-season peak of more than 10,800 a game. The current average of about 7,500 is within a few of last year’s figure. The Sparks’ attendance is up compared to last season only because a “Camp Day” crowd of 13,092 last Tuesday bumped the average by 180, to 8,491.
“The WNBA exists at a moment in time between a rock and a hard place,” said Donna Lopiano, president of the Women’s Sports Foundation, which promotes opportunities for girls and women in sports and fitness.
She attributed some of the league’s struggles to ESPN/ABC not promoting the WNBA as insistently as it pushes NFL and Major League Baseball, for which the network pays huge rights fees it must recoup. Sexism also hurts the WNBA because corporations don’t become sponsors or buy season tickets for women’s sports in the same numbers they do for men’s sports.
“They’re suffering from things they can’t control,” Lopiano said of the WNBA. “It’s a challenge.
“They say it takes three generations or 60 years to make social change. You look at Title IX, which passed 35 years ago. So even with college sports, we’re still only halfway there.”
The NBA supports the WNBA logistically and financially, reportedly pumping in $12 million a year. Although NBA Commissioner David Stern said a year ago the WNBA might make a small profit this season, WNBA President Donna Orender said her league is “very close” to breaking even but not there.
“The WNBA is where the NBA was 30 years into its development,” Orender said last week. “As we begin to turn the attendance trend back up, because of Title IX we have a new generation of men and women who have grown up with women’s sports. They’re our future.”
Perhaps most problematic for the WNBA is a shift away from common NBA-WNBA ownership.
Stern remains the WNBA’s guardian angel, but the sales of the Sparks and Houston Comets before this season increased the number of non-NBA owners to five among the WNBA’s 13 teams. It also furthered the perception that NBA teams are distancing themselves from their sister league.
Kathy Goodman and Carla Christofferson, a teacher and a lawyer, respectively, led a group that bought the Sparks from Lakers owner Jerry Buss last December for $10 million. Goodman said they believed that “from a philosophical perspective, it’s a really important thing to have, that showcases women performing,” but philosophy doesn’t pay the bills.
Nor does it guarantee a compelling product that stands out in a crowded market. And it hasn’t helped that the Sparks lost their most recognizable player, Lisa Leslie, to maternity leave and that the team stumbled into the All-Star break with a franchise-record six-game losing streak.
“If you look at the people who are never going to like women’s basketball or women’s golf or women’s tennis, you could get discouraged,” Christofferson said. “You can’t worry about someone who is never going to like your product as much as figuring out who is.”
With the premise that they provide reasonably priced, kid-friendly entertainment and strong female role models, the Sparks have targeted Girl Scout groups, women’s veterans and professional groups and have partnered with the YWCA.
“It can be like a Kings game. It’s like we should be getting between 10,000 and 11,000 fans a game,” Goodman said. “We should be selling out our opening nights. We should be selling out our playoffs.
“The L.A. area has 13 million people. You don’t need all 13 million to show up to the arena.”
They need more than the core of about 7,000 that has been the ceiling for most WNBA teams.
Those crowds look lost in NBA arenas and negate whatever aura WNBA teams may gain as co-tenants with their NBA brothers. Soon, the WNBA will have to consider placing teams in smaller arenas or in smaller markets.
“Women’s sports have made it in cities where there’s no pro competition,” Lopiano said. “Should the WNBA continue its major-market affinity in light of current circumstances? I want to say yes, because it’s in major markets.”
The heart and the bottom line, unfortunately, don’t always work in sync.
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Helene Elliott can be reached at helene.elliott@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Elliott, go to latimes.com/elliott.
