NEW YORK, NY Sept. 11 (DPI) – A lengthy feature in last week’s Sunday New York Times Magazine suggested the long-unprofitable Womens National Basketball Association isn’t getting a fair shake – the victim of business discrimination and double-standards that favor the $8 billion-a-year NBA.
The WNBA “is putting on some of the best pro basketball in America,” as author Kim Tingley asserts in an initial headline. The article then goes on for 7,000 words about all the business obstacles that keep the 23-year-old WNBA from being financially successful.
But readers were largely dismissive of both the notion that the quality of play in the womens’ league is all that good, and that anything other than a glutted sports entertainment marketplace is responsible for the ongoing lack of success of the league, whose teams are about two-thirds owned by the NBA.
The five highest recommended comments:
It’s ironic and evidence of a certain cluelessness that an article about disinterest in a game is so long that surely, almost nobody is going to read the full length of it. I didn’t, though I wanted to check for some points and so I scanned it thoroughly. But read 7,500 words on WNBA? No thanks and that about says it all. Three points: 1. I looked for and did not find evidence that “The W.N.B.A. Is Putting On Some of the Best Pro Basketball in America.” 2. I looked for did not find ticket prices (which are $55 or so). 3. If Silver is concerned about seeing a packed stadium on TV, they should let people in for almost nothing, gain traction on TV, and then raise prices over time.
Personally having watched some WNBA, I find it far less compelling then for instance any men’s college game and for instance far less compelling than women’s softball, where there exist pitchers who can really impress the viewer. WNBA suffers the same issue as women’s soccer, it’s just not athletic enough to hold the attention. Men playing at the same skill level would not be watched either.
Second most recommended:
It looks slower because it is slower. It’s compared to boys high school basketball because they can’t beat boys high school teams. It’s not complicated. TV doesn’t truly capture the difference between the WNBA and boys and men playing. It’s a disservice to women’s sports when it is ever compared to men. Let it stand on its own. I’ve been to hundreds and hundreds of women’s college basketball and soccer games. I enjoy watching my favorite team, but don’t ever compare it to men’s college sports. han women’s softball, where there exist pitchers who can really impress the viewer. WNBA suffers the same issue as women’s soccer, it’s just not athletic enough to hold the attention. Men playing at the same skill level would not be watched either.
It could be that men and women are different. It could be that men and women both put higher value on displays of male physical competitiveness and skill than they do on women’s for the simple fact that men are better at it and more compelling to watch. It could be that after twenty years of subsidized losses that the market has spoken loudly enough that most non-feminists understand that the WNBA will never be more than a niche league that lives off corporate good will, NBA subsidy, and columns like this attacking/questioning Americans for not spending their disposable income and free time in politically acceptable pursuits. It could be as the quote goes that “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” And the reality currently is not very many people believe that the WNBA is putting on some of the best pro basketball in America.
I regret saying this, but as a general rule women’s sports where there is a equivalent men’s program simply aren’t as much fun to watch. It may sound sexist, but it is also true, men are simply bigger, faster and stronger than women. The men’s games are therefore generally faster and more exciting, some games such as soccer are so boring either way there isn’t much difference. But there is a world of difference between the NBA and WNBA. Simply compare men’s hockey to women’s hockey, men’s lacrosse to women’s lacrosse, baseball to softball etc. Sorry that’s just the way it is.
Why aren’t more people watching? Because, no, it is not some of America’s best basketball, it is as simple as that. Yes, it is good, but it is not some of the best. The product is not compelling enough to grab today’s sports viewers, who are mostly men. If more women watched women’s sports, the sport would be more successful.
And these exchanges were not uncommon in the thread:
Humanity apparently isn’t good enough to extend praise to women. These comments leave me wondering if anybody out there (except my husband) is aware how tiring it is to have to endlessly combat males pushing, pushing, pushing. NYTimes gave us one article on women’s sports (after many basketball articles in the magazine that completely ignored women). Yet you guys need to assert yourselves, assert yourselves, assert yourselves. If you had ever been lucky enough to see a WNBA game up close in person you could have seen how hard these women work.
Reply:
“If you had ever been lucky enough to see a WNBA game up close in person you could have seen how hard these women work.” Allow me to offer the male chauvanist pig response – so what? I don’t think fans choose to attend games or follow a team based on the teams’ work ethic. All the emphasis on a purer game and how devoted the players have to be is yet another example of stating: “I really like this and I think you should too,” and in my experience that’s seldom successful. And, is the country really clamoring for another professional sports series? When is enough enough? The situation the women pros face is just another example of the unfairness of a society that tends to marginalize women’s sports – kind of like the coach in the photo having to wear high(ish) heels, which must be kind of uncomfortable, ’cause that’s the world we live in.