I knew WNBA salaries were pitiful, but I didn't realize they were this bad

The WNBA: Who Loves this Game?

 

You're probably right to a degree about WNBA fans, but you're dead wrong about NASCAR. Those people devour anything you throw out there about racin'. They cannot get enough of it. It's a very large, very hard-core fan base.

 

Seems as though I recalled that 60 percent of WNBA ticket buyers are lesbians.

I thought g/l's had more discretionary income than straight people.

Amazing. Corporate America runs from the lawsuits if they don't come off promoting g/l issues but they don't financially support the WNBA. Sounds as if they really do know something.

 

See? It's that agenda-shoving stuff. Motives always float to the top.

If they'd just played the damn game and focused on the game, they'd do well.

But no. Even SportsJournalists.com's left jumped in on the annual coming out party from the WNBA's elite. Most people just want to see GAMES, not lesbians.

 

i almost fell asleep covering a WNBA game once. the arena was virtually silent.

at least interviewing the players was usually a treat compared with other athletes.

otoh, once the star player on the team i was covering said she would stop talking to the media. seriously, she actually said this. i asked the PR guy if he could make her talk. he said no. i was fine with it.

 

More often than you might think.

People equate "pro baseball" with MLB. But for every MLB player there are about 5-6 "pro baseball" players who make less than I do.

The "average" pro tennis player is ranked in the 400s and will be lucky to make $100,000 . . . which will put him/her in the red once travel expenses are accounted for.

Pro sports are actually much like the rest of society. The top 2% do exceptionally well. Most just get by.

 

They don't exactly have any bargaining chips, the WNBA is still afloat only because of subsidization from Stern and the NBA. If the players start causing headaches and making demands, they can easily cut their losses and just pull the plug on the whole league. Given the weight the league pulls, perhaps they should be grateful they're making that much.

 

Sportschick,

If you're going to call out people about being journalists and spelling names right, then you need to make sure you have your own info correct.

Parker is on pace to graduate by the end of the next fall semester. Because it is in the same calendar year as the upcoming WNBA season, she is eligible to play this season. That is why there is talk about her declaring for the WNBA draft. It has nothing to do with a Maurice Clarett-type of situation.

 

1. I'm not an journalist. And I missed one letter in her name. My mistake.

2. Ok, so she won't leave early for the WNBA due to age-limit rules. Then if she leaves early, where does she play? Overseas? Where nobody will pay any attention to her at all? Unless ESPN buys the rights to Greek league games and starts pretending people actually care about Greek women's basketball (like they are doing for the AFL), you won't hear Parker's name for an entire year. So she will end up trading higher marketability that comes with a year at the most visible women's program in the country for a salary overseas that probably won't be staggering. She has the same injury factor overseas as she does at Tennessee, so she is risking her WNBA career and the marketing deals that might come with it for one year of overseas women's basketball money. Like I said, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Unless Pat is playing mind games with her like she was playing with another recent Tennessee star, I can't see how it makes any sense for Parker to come out early.

Like I said, for some reason ESPN is speculating that Parker may come out early. For all the reasons I stated above? Yeah right.

EDIT - Plus what this guy said:

 

Come on, sportschick...you know the interest level isn't even close. The WNBA has been propped up by the NBA for a while now. I say this as a casual fan of women's basketball.

Blitz, while I agree with you on the media's influence, I don't see it as our job to promote the sport. Our job is to provide news that interests our readers and so far the numbers that have interest in the WNBA are relatively low.

And thank you everyone for ignoring Yawn.

 

The obvious difference is baseball carries its own weight in terms of the revenue it produces from numerous sources and the market demand for the product. The WNBA does not, it continues to survive only because of how it is subsidized by the NBA. That's not WNBA bashing, its just the truth.

 

Everything you need is on ESPN2 right now: The WNBA draft and Linda Cohn.