The Best Basketball Players: "Pound Per Pound"

In an article somewhere I've read on line - I'd give it credit, but I honestly can't remember what it was - a WNBA defender spoke about the foolish dismissals of the WNBA where some fool makes the argument because "my favorite NBA team/college team/local high school team could be a WNBA team". The approach to this defense was one I formulated before, but the article beat me to putting it in print.

Namely, that this argument is never made in boxing. Could Vladimir Klitschko beat up Manny Pacquiao? Probably, since Klitschko is physically stronger than Pacquiao and none of Pacquiao's opponents have hit Pacquiao as hard as Klitschko could. In boxing fandom, there is much discussion as to who is the best "pound per pound" fighter - who is the best fighter taking into account the differing weight classes.

As it turns out, we have a nice "one value" metric to assign worth to a ball player - John Hollinger's Player Efficiency Rating, or PER. PER can be calculated for both NBA players and WNBA players. I therefore decided to count NBA PER as essentially equal to WNBA PER. This equalizes male and female basketball players.

For WNBA players, only players who have played more than 5000 career minutes are included. Sorry, Cynthia Cooper. You probably would have been on this list, but the WNBA started too late.

Top PER Values for NBA and WNBA Players
(min 5000 minutes WNBA, min 15000 minutes NBA)

1. Lauren Jackson (28.55)
2. Michael Jordan (27.91)
3. LeBron James (26.86)
4. Tamika Catchings (26.67)
5. David Robinson (26.18)
6. Wilt Chamberlain (26.13)
7. Dwyane Wade (25.67)
8. Yolanda Griffith (25.49)
9. Bob Pettit (25.37)
10. Tim Duncan (25.02)
11. Neil Johnston (24.72)
12. Diana Taurasi (24.67)
13. Charles Barkley (24.63)
14. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (24.58)
15. Lisa Leslie (24.24)
(T) Sheryl Swoopes (24.24)
17. Magic Johnson (24.11)
18. Karl Malone (23.90)
19. Dirk Nowitzki (23.76)
20. Kevin Garnett (23.59)

So is Lauren Jackson better than Michael Jordan? That's up for you to decide. (As for me, go Lauren.)

Why Condoleeza Rice Loves the WNBA

Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice shares her love of the WNBA with the greater universe.

This might explain why my sport of choice was figure skating (despite my 5’8” frame and 5’10” legs). Dressed in pretty sequined costumes and make-up, I twirled and jumped my way to a decidedly mediocre competitive career. Well, it was actually worse than that—my best finish was third in one competition.

Oh, if only someone had put a basketball in my hand when I was an already lanky 5’5” 10-year-old.

I read this to my (liberal) wife and her first comment was, "I'd say a lot of people would agree with her."

The WNBA's Dream Media Day Gallery

The new Kate, Jaclyn and Farrah?

There are some professional pictures taken by the WNBA photographers of the Atlanta Dream for yesterday's Media Day. Where's the link, you might ask? Why the link's right here! Click along to see all 19 pictures!

* See Erika de Souza's new look!
* Solve the mystery of Chanel Mokango's number!
* See the amazing barefoot owner!

WNBA: "Basketball is Basketball"

The first new WNBA commercials are right here at this link. They'll begin airing over All-Star Weekend.

Here's the thing about these commercials. I like them. I don't know why I like them - I can't quite identify the reason - but I like them.

WNBA Marketing Efforts, Part LXVIII

I'm currently hooked up to one of those NBA polls where I'm asked to fill out surveys regarding WNBA marketing efforts. I was asked to look at five WNBA commercials and give my grades. I managed to get four of the five URLs - I forgot to save the one URL before I moved on to the next question and the survey did not allow backtracking.

I don't know if you can play these, but give it a try:

Video One

Video Two

Video Three

Video Four

They all suffer from the same problems. The survey asked if I had any specific comments; here's what I wrote:

All five videos had the same problem - they all have the same theme, namely "we women can play great basketball, too" - a theme which will convince no one who thinks that the WNBA is per se inferior. None of the videos are particularly clever, nor do any make use of humor. The split-screen video which compares NBA players to WNBA players is particularly annoying; one doesn't compare apples to oranges and the video is guaranteed to please neither side.

WNBA fans don't need to compare their league to the NBA; NBA fans will reject the comparison. I hope the makers of WNBA videos will stop trying to specifically market to disinterested NBA fans and make more videos marketing to those who have been traditionally ignored by sports marketing - more videos on ESPN just isn't going to cut it.

Which reminds me: how come every time I see a WNBA commercial it's always on ESPN2 or on NBA-TV? If you're going to market to people who might become WNBA fans, you need to get out of the male sports ghetto.

So Whatever Happened to Dana Wynne?

I asked that question at the beginning of the year. And now, we have an answer from NorthJersey.com:

The Nutley girls basketball program is confident it has found its leader.

First-year head coach Dana Wynne has the experience and expertise necessary to lead the Raider girls back to basketball prominence. The newly-anointed head coach graduated from Seton Hall University, where she played ball for four years, before being drafted into the American Basketball League in the second round. From there, she made the jump to the WNBA, where she played for the Sacramento Monarchs. Her journey to becoming the NHS coach included playing overseas hoops for eight years in Israel, Turkey, Portugal, Greece and Korea. Wynne coached at [Seton Hall] for three years and now, she’s proud to wear the whistle for the Maroon Raiders.

Glad to see that Wynne's still in the game. Unfortunately, no picture from the article.

My Girls Syndrome

During the Maggie Dixon Classic, head coach Pat Summitt of the Tennessee Lady Volunteers and head coach C. Vivian Stringer of the Rutgers Scarlet Knights were asked their opinions regarding the troubles of the WNBA.
What you got were two very different answers.

First, Summitt:

"It's disturbing and hopefully we're not going to lose our league. I think we have to rally for the cause and...it really bothered me when I heard it and it still does. I think that's why all of us in the women's game need a voice."

Then, Stringer:

"There was a time that we played for the love of the game. I am actually going to give you two answers on this. One is, I think that maybe parents will back off, and maybe kids will begin to play the game for the right reason. I say that because you also notice, coincidentally, during this time that we have had the WNBA success that there has been a whole lot of transferring. There is whole lot of kids that are coming in here thinking that they are all that, always looking for the program that allows them to have the mat and to let them do their thing. The one thing that has always been true about women's athletics is that it was always for the love of the game. You played and gave everything you possibly can just because you enjoyed playing team basketball together. And then it gets to the point that its "Where's mine?" because I got to make sure that I am in the draft, so you begin to lose this team thing and you begin to wonder what are you looking at? So, I am sad in a way because we need a lot of opportunities for young women....So if we are smart, the athlete will realize that at the end of the day you had better focus on academics, that's what it was always about before. And then I think the by-product is if you happen get an opportunity to play on the professional level, that's good, but the other side is what athletes in college don't realize is that there is two full teams of outstanding athletes that are floundering somewhere in the States because they don't have a job ...You shouldn't be in school to play this sport as a professional. I think that is the biggest mistake you can make. It should be for the reasons that we used to tell athletes all the time, but you begin to change your conversations, and you begin to say what everyone else says-you may have a chance to play in the WNBA."

I don't quite know what to make of Stringer's answer. Part of Stringer's complaint was her bemoaning that women's college basketball is no longer as "pure" as it supposedly was.

Of course, women's college basketball is still much purer than its male counterpart, in the sense that big-time men's basketball seems to be more about moving product and making cash for its participants than it does about honoring the student-athlete or glorifying the goal of the liberal arts to create a well-rounded enlightened person. Women's college basketball doesn't have the popularity to attract the big money. When it does, women's college basketball will lose its "purity" the same way that other college sports like college football lost their purity. (I think college football lost its purity so long ago that it doesn't even remember what purity is anymore. A team of honest student-athletes would be seen as something quaint, belonging perhaps to Division III.)

The only other definition of purity of sport comes (maybe) from second-wave feminism, which didn't want to ape patriarchal institutions if parallel female institutions would create the same kind of jerks that the male-dominated institutions created. Sport - at least as it existed in the 1970s - was highly suspect. Amateur, non-competitive communal sports were the ideal of second-wave feminism.

I don't think that C. Vivian Stringer is talking about this kind of purity - I believe that C. Vivian Stringer is about as competitive as you could possibly be, and if she could make Rutgers the #1 basketball school in the country she'll be just as nasty as Woody Hayes if she has to do it. (The same goes for Summitt - big-level women's basketball coaching is a dog-eat-dog world, where the mice nibble holes in iron.) Stringer can claim that the primary goal of the women's athletic program at Rutgers is to change her charges into enlightenment women, but repeating it doesn't make it so. If Stringer can't win games, she'll face the fate of every college coach. Winning might - and should not be - the number one priority of the players, but for coaches winning takes a much higher priority.

I suspect that a large part of Stringer's complaint comes from sour grapes. Epipphany Prince abandoned her senior year at Rutgers in hopes of making money for her impoverished family by playing in Europe - and perhaps, with an eye to making herself more viable as a WNBA propect. If the WNBA didn't exist, then Prince might have stuck around a bit longer in New Jersey. Stringer would like to have athletes that didn't have one foot out the door, so to speak, and that didn't make unspoken demands on her program because they needed enough minutes and enough playing time to satisfy WNBA scouts. Quite understandable.

(There are some who say that what Stringer was saying was that players should keep in mind that a professional career might not actually pan out and that they should spend more time seeking a degree. In which case, my response is "then she should have said that instead of what she actually did end up saying.")

My question: why wouldn't Stringer think that players wouldn't go to college for the primary goal of playing professsionally? (*) If a person - male or female - has skill in playing basketball, if a person loves playing this game more than doing anything else, and the opportunity comes for that player to be paid for that sport - then why wouldn't you expect getting paid to become a player's ultimate goal? Why wouldn't you expect players to seek careers playing the sport they loved? It sounds almost as if Stringer is asking her players to exchange power for purity, which has historically been a bad deal all around.

Part of this might be what Bob Corwin and others call "My Girls Syndrome". Girls' and women's basketball is not so much a continuum of sport as it seems to be a collection of fiefdoms, each one fiercely protective of its territorial prerogatives. "You can support pro basketball, but not if college basketball has to give something up." "You can support college basketball, but not if high school basketball has to give something up." "You can support high school basketball, but not if the AAU has to give something up." And so on, and so forth, forever. It's why it's called "My Girls Syndrome" - emphasis on 'MY'.

My belief is that there is only one thing that is going to kill My Girls Syndrome - greater mobility between the various levels of women's basketball. Most of the mobility goes in one direction - towards college basketball coaching. WNBA coaches and players want to be college coaches, but college coaches don't want to coach in the W - why give up job security and a nice, fat paycheck? Until the WNBA really starts to pay off, expect college basketball - and its coaches - to exert pressure to keep the college women's basketball pure...of any interference from competing interests.

_________

(*) Insert rant about how there is no minor league system for basketball, about the paternalistic excuses used to tie the NCAA to professional sports, etc.

The Most Conservative Sport?

Essayist Chuck Klosterman writes about popular culture as a music critic and sometimes-sports commentator. In a recent article for ESPN, he writes about why he is a football fan. The gist of Klosterman's argument is that football is a sport with an amazing slight-of-hand : it passes itself off as a conservative sport in terms of its values but is actually the most liberal sport in terms of game innovation. As a socially conservative sport, it will always appeal to those who believe in paternalism and macho toughness - as well as what he calls a "reactionary" sports media. (*) However, as Klosterman puts it:

What the NFL has realized is that they have no better marketing tool than the game itself. Every other sport tries to fool us. Baseball sells itself as some kind of timeless, historical pastime that acts as the bridge to a better era of American life, an argument that now seems beyond preposterous. The NBA tries to create synergy with anything that might engage youth culture (hip-hop, abstract primordial competition, nostalgia for the 1980s, the word "amazing," Hurricane Katrina, etc.). NASCAR connects itself to red state contrarianism. Soccer aligns itself with forward-thinking globalists who enjoy fandom more than sports. But football only uses football. They are the product they sell. Unlike David Stern's failed vision for the NBA, the NFL Network does not try to expand its empire by pushing the sport toward nonchalant audiences with transitory interest; it never tries to trick anybody into watching something they don't already like.

Later on, Klosterman answers the question about why he thinks football is so compelling - why someone might like football, as opposed to something else. The important point, however, is that other sports attempt to sell something other than the game itself - nostalgia or some form of social contrarianism. Since the NFL only sells the game, as it were, the game is endlessly reinvented and tinkered with. If the schedule has to be expanded, why not? Instant replay? Why not? Radios in helmets? Why not? (**)

Despite the high-quality writing, what I found most appealing about Klosterman's essay was the dichotomy between the presentation and the actuality: football presents itself as conservative but is highly innovative. You could apply this dichotomy to other sports:

Sport-Presentation-Actuality

Football - conservative presentation, liberal actuality
Baseball - conservative presentation, conservative actuality
NBA Basketball - liberal presentation, slightly conservative actuality
Soccer - liberal presentation (in the United States), conservative actuality

Unfortunately, this implies that football and baseball are exactly conservative in the same way. Maybe we should use a continuum and give football a "10" on conservative presentation and baseball an "8".

Baseball is a little bit less conservative than football in its presentation - how could a sport that has figures like Jackie Robinson and Bill Lee be truly conservative? - but in terms of the rules it is very conservative. The fundamental rules are to be left untouched; interleague play caused a firestorm and they're still arguing about the designated hitter 30 years later.

Basketball would only get a "4" or a "5" on the presentation scale for conservatism. The sport has two contending social groups, those that think that Bob Cousy is the bee's knees and those that think that LeBron is Da Bomb. In terms of a sport, it hasn't changed that much at all. The 3-pointer is the only major innovation in several years in basketball. (***)

Soccer - in the United States anyway - is seen as a sport that threatens the long-standing reactionary order of sports and would probably get a "2 or 3" on the conservatism scale. In terms of the rules, however, the sport would get a hard "9" or maybe even a "10". I can't think of a major soccer rule change since the Dane's head was first kicked across a field in England.



The above led to wonder where women's basketball fits into these scheme. I came to a startling conclusion. Namely, that the WNBA is sort of the "anti-NFL". The NFL presents itself as a conservative sport but is actually a liberal one; the WNBA presents itself as a liberal sport, but might be the most conservative form of basketball there is.

In terms of the WNBA's presentation, it would be hard to think of a sport with a more liberal consciousness. The WNBA can't seem to decide whether to sell the game itself, or to sell "sisterhood is powerful" - so it sells both. The first campaign for the WNBA was "We Got Next" - "we" being "women" in this case - so in the very first ad campaigns, it wasn't so much the game being sold as the fact that women were playing it. Note that it's not the the NBAW but the WNBA - "women" comes before "basketball".

The sport has an active lesbian fanbase and in terms of the major sports, the individual teams probably do more to recognize their gay fanbase than just about any other sport. (Yes, it's a pitiful job, but when compared to the four major sports the WNBA is almost a consciousness-raising group.) The criticism from the reactionary sports media is that the WNBA - and its fans - are freaks, either too mannish or not mannish enough, choosing whichever cudgel they believe will draw the most blood.

However, the sport itself is very conservative, more conservative that football pretends to be. Hell, the WNBA is more conservative than the NBA! The WNBA doesn't have that weird charge arc in the lane. They haven't adapted the "three steps and dunk" traveling rule that the NBA is so eager to try out. For such liberal thinkers, the WNBA's hard core fans are martinet purists when it comes to their sport. Very few of the dimensions of the women's game are scaled down from the men's game. Maybe the 3-point arc is tweaked a little bit but the same court markings are there. The only major concession is the smaller ball, and some fans don't even like that much change.

There have been calls from sources to perhaps lower the size of the rim a few inches or to shrink the size of the court. Most of those calls have come from those who don't follow the sport. (****) These calls are almost unanimously rejected. There are two reasons why these arguments are rejected. The first is that women's basketball fans want the game not be dominated by athleticism and height, and lowering the rims would tilt the game in that direction. The second is that historically authorities have changed the rules of women's basketball in order to marginalize women's sports. As a result, many women want the game to be as much like the men's game as much as possible.

The problem is that the WNBA is very much like the men's game - the men's game of 1957, before the height of the players had caught up to the dimensions of the court. Furthermore, even though shrinking the size of the court would increasing scoring and not really change the passing game so beloved by WNBA fans, fans want the WNBA's court to remain the size of the men's. (*****)



All right. There are valid arguments for not lowering the rim. There might even be valid arguments for not changing the size of the court. But the reactionary attitude of the WNBA fans to any tinkering at all begs the question: would any change to the WNBA game be welcomed? Is the WNBA going to be like baseball, with its purists fighting off any suggested changes with a flurry of "yes-buts"? It seems that the only criticisms that the WNBA will accepts are ones from "within the academy" so to speak. After all, even your worst enemies might have some good ideas.

Maybe this explains why I like the WNBA so much. What was the sport I was following before I started following the WNBA? Baseball. Maybe, despite my attraction to what I think of as social liberalism, I have a longing for conservative sports.

_____

(*) - There is a ton of discussion - on this blog and others - as to why the WNBA is so slow to gain acceptance in the old media. Maybe the explanation is that "the gatekeepers in traditional sports are reactionary sexist pigs". Frankly, the explanation might need be no more complex than that.

(**) - However, there is something lost in liberalizing the rules of your sport - rule changes and tweaks make it much harder to compare players across eras. It's very easy to compare players across eras in baseball; it's much harder in football.

(***) - The impact of the new charge arc and traveling rules is yet to be seen.

(****) - It appears, unfortunately, that most critics of women's basketball come from the reactionary douchebag school. They'll come up with two or three ideas that might be worth considering, and then torpedo their entire effort with something like "and the players should also all play in lingerie". It's like they have a cognitive version of Tourette's Syndrome.

(*****) - A lot of the arguments that fans use to defend the rules of women's basketball come from cost effectiveness - "We can't change Rule X/Equipment Y because it would be too expensive." The initial arguments against the smaller ball came from the perspective of the bean counter, that it would cothat it would be an unfair costs to high schools and colleges who would now have to purchase separate balls for the women. It's sort of a conservative argument if you think about it.

WNBA Business Meetings Next Week

From Greg Bibb over at the Pass the Ball Blog:

Great news from Atlanta last week as Kathy Betty was introduced as the new owner of the Atlanta Dream. Ms. Betty is a well-respected, long-time member of the greater Atlanta business community. I’m excited to meet her at this week’s WNBA business meetings in New York City.

I'm sure they'll talk about whether Tulsa and Minnesota will remain in their respective conferences.

It's Official: Shock to Tulsa

The post - on the (Former) Detroit Shock website - says it all.

We really didn't need a press conference...this was virtually an open secret, but at least we have "closure".

Fan Post on Swish Appeal

I added a fan post to Swish Appeal on what distinguishes between successful and unsuccessful sports leagues.

My conclusion: the WNBA should apply that rule to the Dream and the Shock.

Tulsa to Make Formal Application to WNBA

From USA Today, via the Associated Press:

TULSA, Okla. (AP) — With new supporters on board, a group of investors in Tulsa plans to formally apply to the WNBA to purchase a franchise.
Lead investor Bill Cameron announced Thursday that his group, called Tulsa Pro Hoops LLC, will try to buy a WNBA team and expects a decision from the league by the end of October.

Cameron says Scott and Katie Schofield are the latest investors to join his group, which announced in July that it hoped to gain enough financial support to bring a team to Tulsa in 2010.

The league had set a Sept. 1 deadline for Tulsa to get a franchise by next season, but WNBA president Donna Orender later softened the date.

That's the entire article. I have no idea what a "formal application" is. I suppose it's Tulsa claiming (in writing), "here's what we've got" and the WNBA will either accept the application or reject it.

"By the end of October". It would be funny if the decision came out around Halloween. It could at least spark a team name for Tulsa if they're clever.

Opinion? I think that someone knows something with regard to something (???) so Tulsa has been cleared to no longer hold off their application.

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.

Tulsa: Needs to Sell $250 K in Tix?

I've commented in earlier posts about trying to understand the financial model of the WNBA.

We've learned a new piece of the picture from an article in the Tulsa World about the hiring of Nolan Richardson. Tulsa investor David Box said the following:

“We just need people to buy tickets,” he said. “We sold $45,000 worth of tickets for 65 people at the event last week at the BOK. We have 15 suites available at about $13,000 apiece. If we can sell those suites, we’re home. We’re not that far away. We need some sponsors and we need to sell these suites.”

Okay. Let's assume that Tulsa has sold $45K of tickets for 65 people in one of its meet-and-greet events. That's about $700 for each of those people, so I'm assuming that those are season tickets. (The cost is about $750 in Atlanta.) Let's assume that you need about 2,000 season ticket holders. That would give you $1.4 million from the gate, whether or not those tickets are actually used or not.

Box also wants to sell the suites. That's $195K.

Here's the newest WNBA budget:

Season Tickets Sales: $1,400,000 ($700 x 2000)
Suite Sales: $195,000 ($13 K x 15)

Arena Rental: $255,000 ($15 K x 17 home games)
Arena Operations: $153,000 ($9 k x 17 home games)
Salary for Players: $803,000 (Collective Bargaining Agreement)

Income: $1,595,000
Outgo: $1,211,000

Theoretically, this is a profit, but it doesn't count any of the items mentioned in the first link above: player meal money, player travel/relocation, coach costs (Richardson alone will be a six-figure hire), etc.

Once again, these figures are posted entirely for speculative purposes. They are vague approximations at best. The above is simply to give one the idea of the costs of running a team, and where the money comes from and where it goes.

Time to Run the Chamique

Helen Wheelock writes about the changes taking place in the WNBA with coaches and how the game is different between college and the pros.

Currently head coach of the Dream, Meadors established the basketball program at Tennessee Tech, and has helped start three WNBA franchises – Charlotte (’97), Miami (’99) and Atlanta (’08). “I think that that has been my call of duty,” she quipped, “to be a starter person.”

That, as well as being an assistant with several of the league’s teams, has given Meadors plenty of opportunity to see how coaching has changed at the professional level. “When we first started this league, we were all college coaches and we ran the college plays,” she explained. “None of us do that anymore. We’re all running sets. We’re always trying to get the ball to the people that we know that can hit the shot.

There was an interesting comment made about how little current college players know the WNBA by former Sacramento Monarchs coach Jenny Boucek:

Something that has surprised Boucek is how unfamiliar many of the newly drafted college players are with the league’s players. “I have a few that were fans growing up and they love talking about old players that played in college or the WNBA,” said Boucek. “But most of them have never even heard of stars that have been through this league. They don’t know them, they’ve never even heard of them. And it never even occurred to them that they should know them.”

Her solution? We have named our post moves after older [female] post players. One of our moves is Katrina [McClain] and one of them is Lucy Harris. I make them Google the names of the players and learn their women’s basketball history.”

I guess Boucek will have to take her teaching skills elsewhere.

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.

No Deal with NBA Refs, WNBA Refs Might Be Used

From Hoopsworld:

The NBA is said to be seeking a hefty roll back in costs by its officials. It is believed the NBA is seeking $3.2 million in cost savings and the NBA Referees Association was open to reduction in the neighborhood of $2.5 million. The NBA is believed to looking at reductions in salary to officials, travel costs, health and pension contributions to achieve these goals.

...

The NBA is preparing to use replacement officials from the WNBA, the NBADL, and the college ranks if a deal is not reached.

NBA, meet Michael Price. Wait until he hits LeBron with a technical foul three minutes into the game or decides to call Kobe Bryant for an off-the-ball foul with 0.2 seconds left and the Lakers down by one.

Arena Rent: $15,000/Game?

An article about the possible departure of the Tulsa Talons - an "arenafootball2" team - from the BOK center in Tulsa gives one an idea about the economics of arena rental.

The BOK Center charges the Talons 15-thousand dollars rent per game, but report the team receives 25-thousand dollars from BOK Suite and Premium seat ticket sales. The Talons say they also have to pay 9-thousand dollars per game in operation expenses like ushers and security and have never received more than $22,800 from the seats.

Let's assume the Talons are telling the truth about their economic situation. You would then get this budget for running a team like, say, the Atlanta Dream:

Arena Rental: $255,000 ($15K x 17 home games)
Arena Operations: $153,000 ($9 K x 17 home games)
Salary Cap: $803,000 (from Collective Bargaining Agreement)

So this is $1.2 million dollars a year minimum to run a WNBA team. This isn't counting such things as:

- player meal money
- player travel and player relocation
- coaching expenses (in the six figures)
- staff operationing costs (salary/office rental/office expenses)
- promotions

It all adds up after a while. Of course, the gate helps alleviate some of the expenses. You hope that the gate at the very least takes care of the arena costs. It's an interesting exercise in speculation, and gives one an idea of the challenges an owner or team president faces.

A Parable

So you go to the doctor. Up until this moment, he's been telling you that you're probably about as healthy as anyone else whenever you've visited him. This time, however, he puts on his "business face".

"I have to break some bad news to you," he says. "You have a potentially fatal condition. It's a very strange malady, one that is usually cured by a transfusion. Furthermore, I can guarantee that you'll survive until say, September or October. After that...I don't know. The condition might resolve itself. The transfusion will save your life, but you might even survive without it. However, if you die...it will be before May or June of next year."

"How will I know if I'm going to live?" I ask.

"If you get the transfusion, the chances are 99 percent that you and I will be talking here next year. If you die...it could come any way. You might have fair warning, or you just might keel over and drop dead in a heartbeat. You'll definitely live for a few more weeks, after that, you need that transfusion. I can guarantee you this, though...if you do die, you'll probably have little or no warning."

"Are these transfusions easy to get?"

"No," he says. "Now, I know of some successful cases. There was someone in Los Angeles and someone in Seattle that got the transfusion, and they're thriving. Someone in Houston got a transfusion, but a year later they needed another one. We had to put them on life support. They didn't get another transfusion, and they didn't survive."

"What are my chances? Can you give me any odds?"

"No. Absolutely none. Your chances of being here next year are anywhere between 0 percent and 100 percent. All I can tell you is...take precautions, and keep your hopes up."

(* * *)

By now, you've guessed the meaning of my parable. The "patient" is the Atlanta Dream and the "transfusion" needed is a major investor or even a new owner. My question: what does the patient do?

The first thing the patient should do is to live his or her life as they normally have. No need to fall into the pit of despair. That doesn't help anybody. You look at life as if you're guaranteed to be here next May or June. It might be foolish optimism, but the other alternative is to start digging your own grave.

The second thing to do is to get that transfusion. Season ticket holders need to show up to games. They need to invite friends to games. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution won't help us; they're more interested in writing our obituary than about our miraculous cure. There are six home games in August and we need to attend as many of them as possible.

There's one game in September: September 11th. Don't let this be the Dream's 9/11. You'd better go to that game, because it could be the last one we see. When you go to games, you show people that there's a fandom in Atlanta that cares about this team and it's success.

To quote Lou Brown of Major League:

"All right people, we got 10 minutes 'till game time, let's all gather 'round. I'm not much for giving inspirational addresses, but I'd just like to point out that every newspaper in the country has picked us to finish last. The local press seems to think that we'd save everyone the time and trouble if we just went out and shot ourselves. Me, I'm for wasting sportswriters' time. So I figured we ought to hang around for a while and see if we can give 'em all a nice big shitburger to eat!"

The third thing to do...is make your will. We must prepare for all of the scenarios. I wrote about scenario building earlier this year and there are basically four of them.

The most likely case: This case automatically assumes that all current trends will continue. Franchises in this position of suddenly looking for new owners end up doing one of two things: finding them, or not. Your guess is as good as mine. There's really not another example with which to compare.

The best case: We find a new principal investor, and find him or her very soon. Next year, Dream fans are laughing about this and saying, "boy, we dodged a bullet!"

High impact but low probability:

* It is announced immediately that the Dream will relocate or will fold. This makes the Dream a dead franchise for the rest of the season. Attendance suffocates. Low probability for this one.
* Things are worse than Terwilliger claims, and the WNBA takes over the team.
* Things are worse than Terwilliger and the WNBA claim, and the team folds in mid-season, the first such folding in WNBA history.

The worst case: The Dream stays on the death watch for months, and finally the WNBA announces the folding of the team, or possibly the team's relocation to Tulsa. Since there's more cash in starting a team than moving one, moving one is the unlikely option.

Or even sadder, another investor comes in with big pockets, but wants the team in Toronto/Nashville/Kansas City/Denver/wherever. Just not in Atlanta. In any event, the Atlanta Dream enter WNBA history, and I start blogging about some other WNBA team.

(* * *)

So what do you do? You eat! You drink, and you enjoy every Dream win that we get! If we go to the playoffs, we Ride the Wax Tadpole to a WNBA championship. You get your friends to come to these games...and you always, always keep your chin up.

One Team, One Dream.

Longest Tenures With a Given Team

There are at least a couple of players who have played in every season of the WNBA - Lisa Leslie is retiring this year and I don't think Tina Thompson will ever retire - but it's also an accomplishment to spend several years with the same team, year after year, until you're almost identified with the franchise itself.

Here are the WNBA leaders in the category of most seasons with a particular team. Names in bold are still playing in the WNBA, just not necessarily for the listed team.

Twelve Seasons

Lisa Leslie, Sparks, 1997-2006, 2008-present
Tina Thompson, Comets, 1997-2008 (*)

Eleven Seasons

Mwadi Mabika, Sparks, 1997-2007
Ticha Penicheiro, Monarchs, 1999-present

Ten Seasons

Sheryl Swoopes, Comets, 1997-2000, 2002-07

Nine Seasons

Deanna Nolan, Shock, 2001-present
Lauren Jackson, Storm, 2001-present
Tamecka Dixon, Sparks, 1997-2005
Vickie Johnson, Liberty, 1997-2005
Yolanda Griffith, Monarchs, 1999-2007

Eight Seasons

Andrea Stinson, Sting, 1997-2004
Becky Hammon, Liberty, 1999-2006
Coco Miller, Mystics, 2001-08
Janeth Arcain, Comets, 1997-2003, 2005
Murriel Page, Mystics, 1998-2005
Ruthie Bolton, Monarchs, 1997-2004
Sue Bird, Storm, 2002-present
Tamika Catchings, Fever, 2002-present

(*) - Thompson's tenure was interrupted only by the Houston Comets folding.