WNBA thread… 28.5 ain’t your pay cut

[playthrough]

The Indiana Fever draw about 4,000 a game. Let's say Clark's mere presence doubles that number:

— It would still be about 2,000 less than the average attendance of the lowest-drawing MLB team (the A's).
— It's still less than half the average attendance of the lowest-drawing NBA team (the Hornets).

Clark is doing much more than that. Season tickets in the lower bowl are gone and they released single-game tickets two at a time over a couple weeks to help with demand, and those flew too. Tix for weekend games are pretty much all gone. It's gonna be 15,000 per game or more.

I looked into season tickets a while back, figuring I'd take my youngest daughter to a few games and sell the rest, but chickened out at the thought of Clark having a season-ending injury and leaving me with useless paper.

 

[BitterYoungMatador2]

What amuses me about Doyel's eff up is, if you follow his Twitter feed at all, he's egregiously left-leaning so you'd think not being a pervy meathead to Clark would be a no-brainer.

 

[Hermes]

What a change in fortune for a franchise that was playing at the fairgrounds coliseum just a few years ago.

 

[poindexter]

The Indiana Fever draw about 4,000 a game. Let's say Clark's mere presence doubles that number:

— It would still be about 2,000 less than the average attendance of the lowest-drawing MLB team (the A's).
— It's still less than half the average attendance of the lowest-drawing NBA team (the Hornets).

They are going to draw more than 8,000

Tickets to Caitlin Clark's Indiana Fever debut more than double NBA playoff courtside seats

 

[poindexter]

In 2024, the A's are drawing 6,000.
2024 MLB Attendance - Major League Baseball - ESPN

A's 2023 attendance of 10,000 a game is referred to as "the good ol' days".

 

[MisterCreosote]

In 2024, the A's are drawing 6,000.
2024 MLB Attendance - Major League Baseball - ESPN

A's 2023 attendance of 10,000 a game is referred to as "the good ol' days".

That's a little bit of an anomaly given the shirtstorm that engulfed Oakland, isn't it?

I mean, the historically shirtty sports town of Miami is second-lowest, but it's consistently drawing 14,000-plus to see the Marlins.

 

[BurnsWhenIPee]

Doyel is more likely to get a pat on the back than a firing for that performance.

How much attention, and most importantly how many page views, do you think he brought to the Star yesterday alone, and will in the future, based on people wanting to see what he writes and does next?

 

[MisterCreosote]

Good for Clark and good for women's basketball if the attendance skyrockets.

I've always enjoyed watching the Mystics, and I've been following Elena Delle Donne since she was in high school.

But the Mystics can still barely fill a 4,000-seat arena most days, and that was when Delle Donne, arguably the best player in the game, was still active and they were the best team in the league.

 

[poindexter]

That's a little bit of an anomaly given the shirtstorm that engulfed Oakland, isn't it?

I mean, the historically shirtty sports town of Miami is second-lowest, but it's consistently drawing 14,000-plus to see the Marlins.

The slashed budget A's being horribly run, producing a shirtty product on the cheap is not an anomaly. It's pretty much their 21st century DNA.

It's a feature, not a bug.

 

[playthrough]

Doyel is more likely to get a pat on the back than a firing for that performance.

How much attention, and most importantly how many page views, do you think he brought to the Star yesterday alone, and will in the future, based on people wanting to see what he writes and does next?

I don't know if the pageviews would be as much as one would think. The viral thing was the video clip. Maybe his apology got some views -- though on the Star's site this morning I couldn't find it and his other columns were not prominent.

And if people really want to see what middle-aged-white-man does next while writing about the WNBA, have fun with that.

 

[da man]

The slashed budget A's being horribly run, producing a shirtty product on the cheap is not an anomaly. It's pretty much their 21st century DNA.

It's a feature, not a bug.

The lame duck aspect is certainly an anomaly.

 

[Pilot]

20,000 people a night show up for baseball. A few hundred thousand more are watching or listening.
That's not considering that the WNBA plays in the summer when people are on vacation. I don't think people are going to see the Connecticut Sun instead of heading to the Cape.

Right, but if you're plotting when is the best time to play your sports league, you're looking to avoid the major gravitational events, the ones that suck up all the nation's attention. Baseball, at this point, is so far from controlling the national narrative that it is not something that WNBA execs need to be wary of. Sure, more people watch it, but not enough "more people" that WNBA can't find a healthy audience in what's leftover. Summer itself — longer days, vacations, etc. — is a greater issue, but presumably still preferable to going head-to-head against the NFL or other basketball leagues. No one's claiming the WNBA is about to rival the NFL in popularity, just that the steady growth in relevance it has seen in the last five years will get an even more significant boost from Clark and this class of draftees.