She's the Real Thing!
At the Sports Business Journal (paysite), there is an article about how basketball has been able to keep its revenue flat, usually by deep discounting of tickets.
Even though six of the thirteen WNBA clubs are independently owned from the NBA, both detractors and well-wishers look to the health of the NBA for a sense of the health of the WNBA.
Part of the reason that sales are good is because most of the NBA's sales were made before the recession hit. If the recession continues into 2010, we'll soon learn whether the experience of seeing an NBA game is enough to get teams to dig down into their wallets.
The biggest gains at the gate:
New Orleans Hornets: 20.3 percent
Indiana Pacers: 17.5 percent
Philadephia 76ers: 7.0 percent
The biggest drops at the gate:
Sacramento Monarchs: 10.2 percent
Washington Wizards: 7.8 percent
Miami Heat: 6.4 percent
Teams in bold are in cities that also have WNBA franchises. Oddly enough, Washington is probably one of the healthiest WNBA franchises around. The Mystics backers have a lot of money and are willing to spend it. Furthermore, the WNBA team that is on the watch list is the one in Indianapolis. It's not that the Simons don't have money, but its that they're complaining about leaving Indiana unless Indianapolis gives them the same kind of sweetheart deal that the city gave the Colts - and it looks like the Fever is simply hostage to the negotiations.
On News Google, one can only read a sentence or two of articles behind the "pay wall" at Sports Business News - the disappointment comes when you click the link and all you get is a sales pitch. This was one sentence from such a "for-pay" article at SBN:
Now we hear the WNBA is shopping a deal (or deals) under which corporate logos would be sold on the league's game uniforms. The WNBA has not sold such a ...
Frankly, I'm not shaking in my boots. European player uniforms are bedecked with corporate sponsorship. If wearing Coca-Cola's logo keeps the Dream in Atlanta for a few more years, well, "Things go better with Coke!"
UPDATE: The ever-resourceful RebKellians found a free link to the article quoted above. The consensus at RebKell is approval if it ever comes to selling logos on uniforms; I concur.
2 comments:
It would be weird to see corporate logos on b-ball uniforms in the USA, but soccer has been doing it for years... why not, huh?
Yeah, pretty much why not? The only reason why baseball, basketball or football uniforms don't have logos in Americas is because these clubs have their own brand-name iconography. (The Old English "D" of the Detroit Tigers, the infamous interlocking N-Y of the Yankees, etc.) I think that after a year or two it wouldn't seem so weird at all.
Post a Comment