Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Inverse Correlation
Hits on "WNBA is a failure" on Google: 107,000
Hits on "NBA Development League is a failure"/"NBA D-League is a failure" on Google: 85,500 (*)
Average attendance for WNBA in 2008: 7,931
Average attendance for NBA Development League in 2008-09: 2,713
(*) - combined results of both searches
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4 comments:
Does this actually make sense to you? The D-League is supposed to average right around 3,000 in attendance. What was the projected WNBA attendance?
I can't remember where I got the information for the D-League - I do know that it was very hard to find at the NBA Developmental League site. I ended up finding it on sportsbusinessjournal.com.
If you look at NBA Development League individual franchise data, the numbers are believable. The problem is that all leagues inflate their attendance data; I wonder how much the D-League attendance is inflated.
Even if the WNBA attendance is inflated, it's clearly larger than the D-League's attendance. I believe even the old ABL attendance of the previous women's league (1996-98) was higher.
How many D-League teams play in NBA cities and NBA arenas? My guess would be one. I think this argument is a stretch at best. The D-League gets leftovers from the NBA and/or Europe. The WNBA is supposed to be the premier women's league in the world.
It would be best to compare NBA attendance figures to WNBA attendance figures and draw a conclusion from that.
The projected WNBA attendance when the league was founded was 4000/game. The league has done considerably better than that.
I agree with anonymous. It's a sad statement about Americans that we're so far behind the rest of the world in supporting women's sports.
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