Dream Seeks Victories...and Profit

Henry Unger over at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes about the Dream's financial state. There are some interesting paragraphs:

Betty purchased the team, which had lost about $3 million, in late October, saving it from a likely relocation to Tulsa.

That implies that the Dream lost around $1.5 million a year during the two years of the Terwilliger Era, which correlates with what I've heard before about how much a typical WNBA team might lose.

Some of her hard work is paying off. Betty has reduced the red ink by cutting expenses, securing sponsors such as Aaron’s, Coke and Grady, and hiring an experienced sports exec, Toby Wyman, as chief operating officer.

For any reader that hasn't met Betty, you should. She radiates charisma. Is it sexist to say something about "brains and beauty"? I hope not.

But, even with a first place team, attendance is well behind where it needs to be. To break even, the Dream needs to draw about 8,500 paying fans, Betty said. This season, it has been averaging “just under 7,000,” which is similar to last year’s performance.

Interesting. I don't know if we can make 8500. Even the Braves couldn't fill up their stadium during their championship years; Atlanta sports fans that aren't solely University of Georgia football fans are hard to come by.

Next week, Henry Unger reports about Fitz Johnson and the Atlanta Beat. I'll look forward to it.

WNBA Dream Faces Challenges in 2010

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Still, Betty has some tough financial obstacles to overcome, which is why she’s looking for other investors to join her. She would not disclose the troubling financial numbers, but I’m told the Dream lost about $3 million last season.

Attendance dropped to 7,500 per game last season, from 8,500 during the Dream’s inaugural season. That means the team enjoyed a very short honeymoon period, even though there was a dramatic improvement on the court — not a good sign.

Just to break even, the team will need to average about 8,500 paying fans per game. That will not be easy. Veteran sports reporters and editors I talked with doubted that it could be done, given all the competition from the major sports.

I'm assuming that that $3 million is a net loss, because I figure it has to cost between $3 million and $5 million just to run the dream. Those numbers aren't good, because my understanding of net losses for the WNBA are somewhere between $1.5 million-$2.5 million a year.

Someone (I don't remember who) posited that attendance never reflects the current season, but the previous season. In which case, the big drop in attendance might have been due to the 4-30 record in 2008. However, there is also the sophomore slump associated with the team no longer being a novelty.

All I know is, I'm going to be shortening that gap this year every way that I know how.

P. S.: Aaron's, hmm? Uniform sponsorship?

Wilson: WNBA Lost $2 Million in Detroit Last Year

Tom Wilson, the President of the (former) Detroit Shock, gave some insight into the financial considerations that resulted in the Shock moving into Tulsa.

"The attendance this year was the toughest ever, and we had to make the call. If you guessed, we lost somewhere near two million dollars. We had owners stick by year after year through millions of dollars in losses, but they felt obligated and believed in the product. It was just time."

...

"We were never really part of the core (teams of Detroit) and you can attribute that to the (women's) game, you can attribute that to the summer or whatever, but no matter how much we spent on marketing or advertising, no matter how many appearances the women made, we still weren't able to capture the critical mass to make it make sense."

One of my ongoing pet projects is to try to figure out how much it takes to run a franchise. I'm assuming that the $2 million dollars is a net loss. If it takes about $2-3 million in income, the team probably lost about $3-5 million. The Shock could have lost as much as $20 million net over its history.

Granted, for a billionaire it would mean you would go bankrupt in 500 years, but in the tough Detroit economy finances were the clincher.

A Cautionary Tale

Wright Thompson at ESPN writes about the "Legends Seats" at the new Yankee Stadium which can go for as much as $2,500 a ticket. The gist of the story: big time sports is choking off its fan base in exchange for maximizing short-term profits.

The key paragraphs:

A recent poll discovered an unsettling trend emerging for the first time. American families whose household income is $75,000 or less now have zero dollars of discretionary income. According to Luker, that means about 75 percent of the country can never responsibly afford to go to a live professional sporting event. Franchises want them to be fans, to buy the gear and pull for their teams and watch the telecasts the leagues are paid billions for. But they don't need them to come to their stadiums. There are, right now, plenty of rich people who love games. The prices reflect that. The reason sporting events cost so much now, Luker's research shows, is because they are designed to be affordable only to those making $150,000 or more a year.

This wasn't always true. Ten years ago, it was cheaper to go to a baseball game than to a movie in half of the big league markets (take away parking at the game, and it was cheaper in every market). Today, there isn't a single city in America where it costs less to go to a major league game than to a movie. Everywhere we turn, we see examples of the collapsing middle class. This is where that issue lives in the world of sports, and it has predictable consequences.

"The lower the income," Luker says, "the less they're enjoying sports."

His August poll discovered a third of Americans are less interested in sports because of the declining economy. That's bad news, made worse by a problem he first noticed in 2004 and which has continued since: For the first time, the largest number of sports fans aren't 12- to 17-year-old boys. The baby boomers are the group that shows the greatest increase in a love of sports, and they'll be dying soon.



You can damn the WNBA all you want, but there's one truth: you don't have to take out a second mortgage to see a WNBA game. It might not cost as little as a movie, but it's pretty damn close to one.

NBA Clubs Not Required to Contribute to WNBA

From Sportsbiz - The Business of Sports Illuminated:

Forest City Enterprises, the majority owner of the New Jersey/Brooklyn Nets is a public company, with its stock traded on the New York Stock Exchange (FCE.A). As a result, its recent 10-K/A filed with the SEC last week in connection with the sale of the Nets to Russian oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov, provides us with the most detailed look to date into the financial affairs of a NBA team.

The post gives some ideas of operating an NBA team like the New Jersey Nets. This paragraph is particularly interesting:

There are four NBA subsidiaries reflected in the financials: NBA Media Ventures, Planet Insurance, WNBA Holdings and NBDL Holdings. Two things related to these struck me. The club received distributions of $3.5 million, $5 million and $5.2 million in 2009, 2008 and 2007 respectively, and the Nets are not required to contribute any funding to the operations of any subsidiary. That tells me that either they are all making money or the league is using league-wide revenues to fund any deficit incurred by the WNBA or the NBDL.

Some greater detail: In the financial documents submitted, there is a section called "Investments in NBA-Related Entities". These entities include:

* NBA Media Ventures (LLC)
* Planet Insurance Ltd.
* National Basketball Association
* WNBA Holdings (LLC)
* NBDL Holdings (LLC)

The Nets own 3.4 percent of all of these entities. (Each of the 30 clubs in the NBA appears to own an equal piece.) The Nets contributed to only two of these entities: NBA Media Ventures ($6.5 million in 2008, $7.8 million in 2009) and in Planet Insurance ($240K in 2008, $190 K in 2009). The Nets contributed nothing to either the WNBA or NBDL.

Basically, these limited liability companies don't have to pay certain taxes and can distribute profits (if any) any way they want to. The WNBA Holdings LLC might be a temporary company. But in any case, the Nets aren't contributing anything to it.

Which means that clubs can decide whether they want to support the WNBA or not. This implies that the money from the NBA - if there is any - is coming from somewhere else in the budget, and not from NBA ticket holders or the clubs. (The same is true for the NBDL). So for those who want to claim that their ticket costs for NBA games are going to the WNBA, they can be set straight.

Meijer To Help Out Detroit Shock Fans During Home Playoffs

According to a press release from the Detroit Shock, Meijer joins up with the Shock to give away 2,000 free general admission tickets to each Shock home playoff game. Details are in the link above.

The good news? Meijer is helping out the Shock, and some of those people watching might decide to stick around a while. (Detroit has massive unemployment right now.) The bad news? That it came to this.

More Insights From Tulsa

Word from the Tulsa Beacon is that the Tulsa Talons - the arenafootball2 team in Tulsa - will be moving to San Antonio. The reason being given was that the Talons wanted their per-game rental of the BOK Center in Tulsa decreased from $15,000 a game ($10,000 on Mondays) to $7,500 a game. The city supposedly wants to reduce rental rates on a scale as attendance increases.

What is interesting is some of the numbers excerpted from the article:

Talons pay BOK Center Rent of $15,000 per game for games on Saturday nights and $10,000 Rent per game on Monday nights

Talons receive 20 percent of concession sales money received by BOK Center. Talons receive 100 percent of merchandise sales for team merchandise sold inside the venue.

I wonder if the Dream recoups some money from both concession sales and from team merchandise sold at Philips. If so, that would definitely be a way for fans to support the team - eat more stuff!

P. S.: According to our anonymous commenter, the better way for Dream fans at Philips to support the team - outside of showing up - is to buy some team merchandise. Get your shopping done before December!

Starting a Pro Sports League

CBS Sports wrote an article four years ago about what it takes to start a sports league from the ground up. Contributing was Rick Horrow, who calls himself "The Sports Professor" and is pretty much a professional sports law commentator.

The first paragraph celebrated three sports events: the Dew Action Sports Tour in Louisville, World Bowl XIII in Duesseldorf, Germany and ArenaBowl XIX in Las Vegas. Only the Dew Action Sports Tour - devoted to "action" or extreme sports - still exists. NFL Europa closed shop in 2007, and the Arena Football League gave up the ghost in 2009.

Despite the fact that the article might not have predictive weight, here are the four factors stated by Morrow:

1. The "niche" sport should have a substantial core of loyal and intense followers. Morrow's example was the Professional Bowlers Association.

2. The start-up league must attract a stable of emotionally and economically secure owners and investors committed for the long term. This time, the example was AVP Pro Beach Volleyball.

3. The long-term business blueprint should maximize television exposure (whether through rights fees or initial start-up investment). Morrow used the Arena Football League as his example.

4. The business plan must rely on a level of consistent support and growth from corporate America. The case studies used are those of the Professional Bull Riders Tour and the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society.

Without looking at how the WNBA fits in as a "niche" sport, let's look at the WNBA as it relates to the development of other major pro sports.

First, does the WNBA have a substantial core of loyal and intense followers? It all depends by what you want to call "substantial". I remember that Val Ackerman said at the foundation of the WNBA that she expected about 4,500 fans per game. I also remember that the goal for the Atlanta Dream when it was founded as a franchise was to have about 1,500 season holders.

We don't have a lot of numbers to look at - just those two, taken from two completely different time frames (1997 and 2008). The questions any sports league has to answer is:

a) how many season ticket holders are there per franchise, and
b) what is the rough mathematical relationship between STHs and regular attendees?

Historically, you would think that the WNBA does have a substantial core of loyal and intense followers - these should be the people who have been following girls high school basketball and women's college basketball. They've been following the sport for two decades. The major men's sports - baseball, basketball and football - all had fans who had been following the sport at an organized level for over two decades before those sports went pro.

On the other hand, you have to wonder how numerous the women's basketball fanbase is - high numbers for Tennessee and Connecticut women's basketball doesn't tell the story. Annemarie Ferrell's paper related the stories of women who watched men's college basketball but didn't watch women's college basketball. Among the many reasons given is that the last time these women watched the women's college game - twenty years earlier - the gyms were virtually deserted.

Women playing professional team sports is only a recent development. If the core isn't substantial enough - so to speak - is there a chance that the size of this core can grow? I feel that part of the reason of the demise of Arena Football was that the sport had no "core" - people were quite willing to attend it but the "core" of its fan base were fans who followed regular season football. There was no core of people who would forsake all other sports - if it came to that - to watch Arena Football. Does the WNBA have a group of people who would put their WNBA experience above following women's college sports if the financial crunch came?

Second, how economically secure are the owners and investors of the WNBA? I've mentioned the list of owners for the WNBA in the past. Some of the names on that list are billionaires. Some are multi-millionaires, or even "two-digit" multi-millionaires. Some come from fields (real estate) that have taken a hit in the Great Recession, others have seemingly secure sources of income.

For the WNBA, I think the more important question is that of the "emotionally secure" investors. How long have the owners of WNBA teams had their fortunes? How experienced are they as business managers? How likely are they to bail out at the first sign of trouble? I have my doubts about some of the WNBA owners - without naming names, I wonder if some of them really have the nerve - there's no nicer way to say it - to navigate the rough patches.

Part of that question comes from whether or not they expect profit, and if so, how much. Once again, I want to point to the Arena Football League and what I perceive as the emotional instability of its investors. I suspect that a lot of them were operating on razor-thin margins and were looking to get out at the first opportunity. However, the TV contract kept many owners satisfied enough and I'm sure many hoped that the proposed Platinum Equity deal would bail them out of their troubles. When that deal fell through, the league collapsed.

The third question is "television exposure". I think Morrow simplifies the matter greatly in the article - the question is "media exposure". The TV deal for the Arena Football League wasn't enough to save that league, and I doubt that the WNBA's TV deal is much better.

The WNBA has an advantage in having the patronship of NBA TV. Many critics claim that the NBA just props up the WNBA, but many overlook the biggest prop of all - cable television. No matter how far you are away from the WNBA, if you can get NBA TV you are guaranteed to see some of the games, even on weekdays.

On the other hand, the WNBA has the disadvantage of a hostile print media in many of its cities. Sports departments of major newspapers tend to be more conservative, and at least with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the attitude of the reporters (on their AJC-hosted blogs) to the Dream is that of outright scorn. If the reporters feel free to mock the WNBA, what do the editors think? This begs the question "can a sport survive without the partnership of print media?" The Dream and other WNBA teams are certainly trying to do this by embracing the "new media" of the Internet and Web 2.0 applications. Whether this is a successful strategy remains to be seen - there is a chance that the strategy could be successful, given falling newspaper circulation which might simply diminish the scornful voices.

Finally, we look at corporate sponsorship. The WNBA has made some big strides in this area with two teams - Phoenix and Los Angeles - selling jersey sponsorships and the Pacers/Fever entering a long-term deal with Kroger. The detractors claim that the selling of jersey space indicates desperation, but one person's desperation is another person's opportunity. The WNBA hasn't been around long enough to consider its jersey space sacred, and the majority of the WNBA's players plays overseas in the off-season where jersey sponsorship is a given. As far as the WNBA is concerned, not only is there no controversy, it's also a "no-brainer". Indeed, pro leagues are starting to look at selling sponsorship at least on their practice jerseys.

Will the WNBA end up like NFL Europa or the Arena Football League? I think that the WNBA has a few advantages - the existence of a core of followers (even an insubstantial one) and the willingness to seek corporate dollars by doing something different. However, the hostility of the print media is a definite disadvantage. If the WNBA can find solid - and emotionally stable - investors, then I would conclude that the WNBA has a brighter future than either of those two aforementioned entities.

Heard on Twitter

Accoring to @jaydaevans on Twitter, the league will cut staffs down to one assistant coach this season.

I don't care if they play games in a barn, just as long as they have a league. You'll find me sitting near the chickens.

Bass-Ackwards About The Fever

Bob Kravitz over at the Indianapolis Star can't even find anything nice to say on opening day. His article is titled "Enjoy what is probably the final Fever season.

Kravitz has his feet planted firmly in Yes-But-Land. After a few caveats - Kravitz provides plausible deniability with a few phrases about how its good for the Fever to exist - he gets to what he really wants to write about.

"If you're a decent businessman, and you're hemorrhaging money while your WNBA franchise is doing nothing to improve your bottom line, where do you cut yourbudget? For all of the franchise's good works on and off the court, the Fever is a Simon mall that can't draw shoppers. In the end, it's going to be about basic business arithmetic."

No point in clicking the link, because Kravitz clearly Didn't Do The Research. The decent businessman - Simon - is probably one of the wealthiest men in America. His screaming about the Fever is part of his extortion racket with Indianapolis - basically, he wants the same sweet deal for himself that the city granted the Colts. Simon is paying a cost of $1 a year to rent out Conseco Fieldhouse; clearly, poverty is not far from the multi-millionaire's door.

It's basically a game of "Give me want I want, or I'll show you how poor I am...I will make the horrible sacrifice of killing the Indiana Fever just to show that I mean business!" Maybe Simon should worry about the franchise that's hemorrhaging money before he worries about the one that's merely leaking it. Getting rid of the Fever to cure the Pacers is like a surgeon looking at a man stabbed in the stomach and shouting, "Nurse, I need a band aid to fix this man's paper cut stat!"

We can tell whose side the Indianapolis press is on. Poor Fever.

P. S.: Kravitz looks at the franchise sponsorships that Phoenix and Los Angeles have found. My prediction: the Fever will not find a franchise sponsor. It's not that they won't be able to find one; rather, it won't be allowed to happen because that way Simon can plead poverty more effectively.

P. P. S.: Kravitz asks with regard to suggesting a franchise sponsor for the Fever. "Can I suggest Victoria's Secret?" (My answer: "Sure, if you want to show the world you're a douchebag.") If you read the comments, the bulk of the commenters make the obvious cost-cutting suggestion - keep the Fever and get rid of Kravitz.

Dream Looking for Winning Season to Bring More Fans

A new article from the Washington Post second hand via the Associated Press interviews Dream president Bill Bolen who speaks (a little bit) about the financial state of our favorite team.

Bolen said apparently they liked what they saw. The victory convinced some season-ticket holders that Atlanta would definitely win more than four games with its revamped roster - which includes six-time All-Star Chamique Holdsclaw. Bolen said some season-ticket holders renewed their tickets during the game.

"Some of the them said, 'OK, I believe now,'" Bolen recalled. "'I don't want to miss this.' If you saw the talent we've gotten, you quickly realize this won't be another four-win season. I think once we start to really win, people are going to come out in droves.

(* * *)

Bolen wouldn't say how much the franchise lost in its dismal first season, but did say that owner J. Ronald Terwilliger didn't expect to gain much financially as an expansion club last year. Bolen added that the franchise is "feeling good heading into the future."

The LifeLock Mercury?

With WNBA fans going nuts trying to figure out the major announcement coming from both NBA Commissioner David Stern and WNBA President Donna Orender on Monday at 9 am regarding the Phoenix Mercury, longtime WNBA fan pilight has discovered a major clue.

First, note that the Phoenix site is on "lock down". Look at the locking device which you can see at the website:



It sort of looks like a little person with a head and legs, doesn't it. Now, look at the following unnamed corporate logo:



BINGO. We have a match. (*)


So which corporation does the person-lock logo belong to? It belongs to a company callled LifeLock. LifeLock has a sort of bumpy history, but they're in their fourth year of existence. They are based in Tempe, Arizona.

Bleacher Report has already posted the LifeLock connection.

My conclusion: LifeLock is going to be involved with the Phoenix Mercury in a "game changing" way, one so big that it's beyond the ordinary story of a corporate entity acquiring a company. My most recent guess is that the Phoenix Mercury will either:

a) be the first WNBA team to have its name changed to that of the sponsor, to be officially known as the LifeLock Phoenix Mercury or some variation thereof, or
b) be the first WNBA team to wear the sponsor's logo on its journey, or
c) possibly both.

My guess is "c". This is something that is done in Europe all the time - all of the teams there are sponsored by corporations, and wearing corporate logos on the jersey is simply a given. The name of the team usually reflects the corporate name.

Undoubtedly, David Stern is there to give his official and public blessing to this project, as a way of telling potential sponsors, "I, David Stern, approve of this direction." ("And, if you want to sponsor an NBA team, please bring a truckful of money with you. Gracias.")

If this happens, the Pleasant Dreams blog will give its blessing as well. If Lifelock is going to help out the Mercury, I'm going to help out Lifelock. I'll call the team the "Lifelock Mercury" or somesuch. Corporate sponsors who want to sponsor the Pleasant Dreams blog know where to write.



(*) Either that, or the graphic designer for the Mercury's lockdown page is horribly lazy and is just grabbing logos and recycling them. In which case she might be looking for a new job soon. According to other sources, the Suns/Mercury web design team is very competent, so I only give a 1 % chance of this being the explanation.

WNBA Loses Credit Card Sponsor

From the She's a Baller blog:

The WNBA lost one of its biggest sponsors in Discover Financial Services, as the credit card company opted not to renew with the league after its three-year agreement expired this spring.

Discover’s departure comes as little surprise given the economic pressures on the financial services industry, but it leaves the WNBA without one of its most active partners.

Tough times all over. The WNBA picked up Hewlett-Packard and Starwood Hotels. Nike and 1-800-Flowers have renewed, according to the article. However, there's just less money to go around in sports in general, and the credit industry is particularly hard hit.

NBA Tix Sales Flat; WNBA Considering Corporate Logos

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.

Talk About Performance-Based Contracts

It appears that Extrugasa, before their final loss of the season to Ros Casares, were given a letter last Wednesday. My understanding is that since Extrugasa had fallen to the bottom of the Liga Feminina (the Spanish Women's Basketball League) and were destined to be sent to Liga Feminina 2 the Extrugasa Board of Directors felt they should be compensated. They were asked to sign a letter turning over part of their salary back to Extrugasa, which would be taken out of their paychecks in September. (Apparently, the team promised them some back salary which was due in September.)

No one on the team signed that letter. The players informed the club that they didn't want to be involved in any contentious disputes right there and then. If the club had any issues with player salaries, Extrugasa could speak with their agents.

Sara Gomez, Extrugasa's team captain, said "It is normal to be disappointed, like all other players in the staff refused to sign the document, as well as punish them for the reason explained above, they were promised payment of salaries owed to them in next September." Basically, she meant that she understood that Extrugasa was unhappy with the results, but the payment was promised to the players and they deserved it.

The story above illustrates the difference between Europe and the United States. European players, like American players, are concerned about the financial survival of their league. The WNBA's union has pretty much given in to management demands - they'll take lower salaries to ensure they have a place to play. European players want to work with management as much as they can, like the Americans.

I expect, however, that the Americans would have been far less polite about it. Suppose that Ron Terwillinger walked into the dressing room of the Atlanta Dream and said, "I'd like for you to return, oh, 25 percent of your salaries back to us after that horrible season. After all, you didn't perform to expectations." It would have taken a crowbar to peel Betty Lennox's claws from his face.

(Heads up to Bert at the Painel do Basquete Feminino blog for pointing out the story.)

The WNBA: New Customers vs. Repeat Business

Someone once wrote that all of women's basketball fandom could be split into three groups. There might be some overlap, but not a lot:

a) the elderly,
b) males taking their young (under 13) daughters so that the daughters will have strong women as role models, and
c) lesbians.

Let's take this bold statement as a jump-off point, and accept it uncritically as fact. The above group is the "repeat business" of the WNBA - these are the WNBA's potential core base, who are going to keep coming to games come what may. They have bought in.

The question is in which direction should the WNBA go if it is to survive? It seems that 100 percent of the emphasis on the WNBA financial future is about new business - we need more fans in the seats. We need better attendance. We no longer need repeat business, we need new customers instead.

Indeed, that appeared to be the emphasis on WNBA advertising from 1997-2000. The goal was to market to the yuppie crowd, and make the WNBA audience a "family audience" - mom, dad, Junior and little Sis. The impression I got from brief glances at the WNBA during the 20th century was that this was to be some vast, untapped market.

Unfortunately, it didn't turn out that way. For whatever reason, the WNBA couldn't grab that middle class young professional demographic. Rumor has it that when these middle class right-leaning families came to Utah Starzz games, they were taken aback by the loud and proud lesbian presence - in Utah. (Did they believe that lesbians did not exist in Salt Lake City?) It would have been unseemly for the WNBA to purge the lesbos, so they lost the Young Republicans.

In the 21st Century, the WNBA began looking for some new, heretofore untapped audience. It appears that they settled on attempting to grab fans that had some hesitation about attending a WNBA game because they believed that the quality of play of women's basketball wasn't very good. This culminated in the self-abasing commercials of the 2008 season where players were forced to repeat humiliating lines on camera as to how bad women's basketball was - with video clips to prove the opposite. The new commercials not only confirmed the prejudices of their target audience but alienated their core audience. The core audience had enough problems dealing with the red-bellied woodpeckers out there; they didn't need the WNBA parroting the arguments of the enemy, even if in jest.

One gets the suspicion that the WNBA doesn't particularly like its core audience and if a magic wand could be waived and all three groups above could be replaced by some corn-fed midwestern demographic it would be the solution to all of the WNBA's problems.

This is a shame, because the solution the to WNBA's financial problems might not be in the hunt for new customers - which should, of course, not be abandoned - but to pay more attention to its core base.

One rule of marketing is that is costs more money to create a new customer than to service an old one. Furthermore, it also costs less money to keep an old customer than a new one, because "brand loyalty" sets in. Let's suppose that the WNBA needs to increase its revenues by 20 percent to survive another year. Which do you think would be the more difficult task?

a) get the core base to put up another 20 percent in revenue, or
b) try to increase your fan base by 20 percent and keep revenue charges the same?

I suggest that a) is easier than b). The a) group is more likely to spend money anyway; you just need to give them a reason to open their wallets.

Therefore, instead of looking for new fans the WNBA should market more effectively to its older ones. This could be a three-pronged effort:

1. Commercials that appeal to the elderly base and the family base. You could theoretically appeal to both bases at once. If I were doing commercials for the WNBA, I would emphasize the link between the current WNBA players and their parents. You see Diana Taurasi all the time, but you never see her parents.

A commercial would be narrated by Mr. and Mrs. Taurasi emphasizing the pride they have in Diana's accomplishments. Diana would not have any lines in the commercial, but we would see her play. Diana might appear at the end with her parents, and the messages would be....

...I am a strong child of strong parents
...my parents nurtured me to achieve my dreams
...I am proud of my parents
...my parents are proud of me

Let's see the red-bellied woodpeckers out there mock parenthood. If you get a set of parents that look elderly and wise enough, it would appeal both to the elderly - "hey, that player is just like our granddaughter!" and to the male (married or divorced) who is looking for something to do on a weeknight or weekend with his daughter. If the WNBA is looking to create a family atmosphere...my suggestion is that you emphasize the families that actually exist. If you can get Angel McCoughtry playing one-on-one with her dad in a commerical, that would be great.

2. Commercials that explicitly appeal to the lesbian fanbase. It's time. They have a network for that and everything...ever hear of LOGO?

Face it, of the three groups above, it's the lesbians that have the income. Whenever I go to Dream games, the season ticket areas are packed with older, graying lesbians that own their own businesses, that are executives in companies, that have a lot of disposable income. And, inexplicably, the WNBA would like to ignore that.

Don't worry about getting the reputation of being a "lesbian league". The red-bellied woodpeckers have made that argument for 13 years; they won't be convinced of anything.

If a player is willing to come out of the closet, let her come out and do commercials on LOGO or elsewhere. Hanging out with a bunch of women (the sexual orientation doesn't have to be stated) and just having a lot of fun. "I can be with my friends in the WNBA," would be the message. The WNBA is your friend. Come to the games.

Hell, I'd go all out and see if LOGO could put together a WNBA studio show. Maybe even televise a few games. Why the hell not? I'm sure that a few fiery lesbian fans as announcers could give Art Eckman a run for his dollar. Where is the lesbian Charles Barkley as announcer? Don't tell me that the Lesbian Nation has no opinionated women in it!

In short, in times this bad economically, I suggest to the WNBA that it stop running after the pot of gold behind the ever-further-away rainbow and reach out to what it has. Word of mouth helps business a lot more than the most spectacular commercials anyway. To borrow an old sterotype, it's time for the W to stop trying for the spectacular slam-dunk and put its emphasis on the old-school game.

Even the NBA Must Suffer

From BusinessWorldOnline:

LONDON — The National Basketball Association will play only two preseason games in Europe this year, including one between the Chicago Bulls and the Utah Jazz in October, NBA Commissioner David Stern said yesterday.

Last year four European three season games were played. If this keeps up, the players are going to have to put wholesale whitewalls on their Bentleys.

NBA Losing More Money than WNBA

David Stern, head of NBA, patron of the WNBA, and Lord High Wizard of All in Basketball just stated something that might turn conventional wisdom on its ear - if anyone listens to it.

With the NBA quivering under the winds of our recession/depression, Stern was asked about the health of the WNBA:

"The NBA is far less profitable than the WNBA," he said. We're losing a lot of money amongst a large number of teams. We're budgeting the WNBA to break even this year."

Now that's a stunner. Although it's not hard to believe. NBA tickets are more expensive than WNBA tickets, and NBA depends a lot more on corporate sponsorships whereas the WNBA depends more on gate receipts.

Next time some jock commenter says that the WNBA is losing money...tell 'em David Stern sent ya. (/smile)

Arena Football League Suspends Play for Entire Season

I read this at joefavorito.com. More news here from Canada's National Post.

It looks like the economic crunch is hitting everyone. The first post has an interesting observation about the WNBA vs. the AFL. The WNBA had message discipline - no one said a thing about Houston folding until just before the WNBA announced it - whereas the communication in the AFL seems to be going in all directions.

The Arena Football League averages/averaged an attendance of about 13,000 a game in 2008.

WNBA Not Only League Feeling Economic Pinch

This article is from Outsports, a gay sports site. Perhaps not safe for work, if you/your employer is squeamish about OH N OES TEH GAY!!1!

It looks like both the NFL and NBA are starting to feel the pain as well. The NFL is "rightsizing" 15 percent of its staff in an effort to save $50 million dollars. The NBA is "eliminating redundancies" in the name of 80 employees. Even in the middle of the season, it looks like intake != outflow where it comes to cash.

I wonder how many of baseball's minor league franchises will survive.