How to Get the WNBA Into the Mainstream

I think it's pretty much common knowledge in sports circles that the WNBA has been in financial trouble since day one. It would have folded years ago, if not for David Stern's dogged determination (and financial backing) to make this thing a success. But more than 10 years in, it's still on shaky ground. So much that teams have resorted to selling their jerseys as ad space like the background of an over-budget action movie.

I'm sure it baffles some people why the WNBA hasn't caught on, because after all, women's basketball in successful in Europe, right? But we can't always compare our tastes to that of the Europeans, because after all, they also like soccer. And they sustain the music careers of our failed stars long after they should have faded all the way into obscurity. Plus, they're socialists.

I could come up with a ton of reason why the WNBA is failing, just like I could come up with a ton of ways to fix it. Unfortunately, 80% of those reasons and ideas revolve around the objectification and lack-of-objectification of women. But I do want to prove that I'm somewhat credible when I'm writing in this blog of mine, so I'll have to do better than saying, "Instead of high-fives, the players should be required to passionately kiss at midcourt."

Yes, the WNBA players are skilled and talented. Truly, 90% of those players could beat the brakes off of me (and anyone watching) in a game of one-on-one. I still believe that I could take the tall stiffs, much like their NBA counterparts.

But it's not always the most exciting thing to watch, and once you get past the inspiration of showing girls that they can also be strong and beautiful, it dawns on you that all you're doing is watching short people jog up and down the court. If I had a daughter, I would watch the games with her, because I'd want her to believe that she can do anything, but in reality, I'd just be counting the days until Oct. 30, when real basketball starts.

Basketball is a game of speed and athleticism, but the WNBA players are slower and not as athletic. And that's not their fault, it's just how we're built. Men are built for running, jumping, and drinking a 12-pack on Sundays during football season. Women are built for other stuff, like generally not being as athletic and walking in heels. Sure, they can run and jump, too, but men do it better. I know this because the Olympics told me so. And if they want, I feel that they should be allowed to compete against men. I just hope their fragile self-esteems don't cause them to cry all over the court.

I kid, women. I kid. But you guys know you can cry at the drop of a dime.

So how does the WNBA overcome this? After all, that's the main appeal of the NBA, watching really tall men do things that the rest of us couldn't imagine doing without it being a dream or an episode of Slamball. We want to see LeBron jump over people, or Dwyane Wade block shots, or Shawn Marion jumping over six other guys to secure a rebound. We love the "above the rim" aspect of the game. We love the idea that a man can be 6'8", 240 lbs. and still be the quickest guy on the court.

The WNBA doesn't show us anything that most of us don't believe we can't do ourselves. They don't jump particularly high or run particularly fast (except the really short players). Everything is below the rim without the "above the rim" stuff to balance it out. So how does the WNBA fix it?

Lower the rim to nine feet.

Really, what does the WNBA have to lose? It's burgeoning fanbase? Hell, it doesn't even want the one it has. It's extremely popular among lesbians, from what I understand, and a percentage of the league is likely carpetmunchers, anyway. Yet, the WNBA won't even acknowledge them. It still desires mainstream acceptance, despite the fact that they run in the summer time, when no one watches TV. It's been 13 years. The revolution isn't happening.

But if you can get these women in the air, you might see something happen. The novelty factor alone would get ratings up, I'm sure. Not only that, dunking at nine feet is an attainable goal for an athletic woman. Follow me on this.

When boys get to be about 14 or 15 years old, they spend hours just trying to reach the rim, inadvertently strengthing the muscles needed to jump higher. By the time they're 17 or 18, they're dunking with two hands. Women don't ever do this unless they're 6'4" or something, because, really....what's the point? If a girl is 5'6", she's never going to reach a ten foot goal, and with girls not being complete dumbasses (until they start dating, anyway), they're not going to blow out a knee trying to get there. But nine feet? She might be out there, trying to dunk for hours, just like the boys do. Her legs will get stronger, until she can dunk with ease, just like the boys do. Only it'll be on a nine foot goal.

Say she goes into the WNBA, where she dunks all over the competition on the regular, making highlight reels on ESPN every night, inspiring girls to go out and do the same thing, an actual female Michael Jordan. Ten years later, girls are throwing down all over the place and All-Star Weekend has a female dunk contest for us to ignore.

You trying to tell me you wouldn't watch that?

It was predicted when the WNBA (and the ABL before it) started play in the mid-90s, that dunking in women's leagues would become more commonplace as time went on. And it hasn't. Lisa Leslie and Candace Parker are about the only two players who can do it, and they're both well over six feet. It's not going to happen. And neither is the mass appeal that the WNBA is looking for. So why not engineer the conditions that would allow it to happen?

Corporate Logos: The Next Big Thing

I can't believe that I'm actually writing about the WNBA. But it's also the first time they've ever been newsworthy.

The WNBA's Phoenix Mercury have decided to replace their team name on their jersey in favor of the team's official sponsor, LifeLock. LifeLock paid $1 million for the right to turn some of basketball's least watched players into moving billboards for identity theft protection. WNBA President Donna Orender called this "an innovation." Because it's not like we haven't seen rampant advertising in America before.

Just like that, some are predicting this to be the next trend for American pro sports. I think that's getting a little ahead of ourselves. The fact of the matter is, more people would watch the D-League over the WNBA if it had a TV deal. The NHL has a greater national profile than the WNBA and the NHL are airing their playoffs on Versus. Everyone knows that the WNBA is in financial trouble and has been since it came out, and will probably continue to be until women start dunking on the regular.

So this "innovative" move really isn't that big of a shocker. It is very likely to catch on in a league where the team that won it's first four titles just folded. And it's only innovative in the sense that it's the first televised professional basketball league in America to do this. Major League Soccer has been doing this since it's inception just to get off the ground, and all European sports do this.

So why wouldn't it catch on here? We already have ads in our video games and sell naming rights to our stadiums, so why wouldn't we just go all the way and have Nike and L23 logos all over our Cleveland Cavaliers jerseys?

First thing I'd say is that no one would buy a basketball jersey that said "Duracell" across the front instead of "Knicks." But it wasn't that long ago when everyone was buying those NASCAR jackets that had corporate logos all over them. Nelly has made a career on rapping about his shoes. And I don't know how well it caught on, but down here in the South, there was/is a trend where people are covering their cars with corporate logos, without any prompting from the companies, presumably because they get off on humiliating their race.

So it would appear that our sports leagues are already prepared for such a transition. Despite being in relatively good financial shape, our leagues will do anything to make a dollar, even making us sit through an Ashlee Simpson halftime show, in a desperate attempt to draw in a more varied audience. Claiming that their teams need a new stadium to fight off competition, when there's only one football team in the state. Really, there is nothing that is beneath a sports team. Logic would dictate that it's a matter of time before "Baby Ruth" replaces "Yankees" on baseball jerseys.

For God's sake, one baseball team let Sony promote "Spider-Man" by putting the logo on its' bases. They have no shame. The only thing stopping this from taking the sports world by storm is that, unlike the WNBA or MLS teams, the team names for NFL, NBA, and MLB teams actually have value.

Corporate ownership, despite the fact that they would eat babies live on the air, if it was profitable for them, value image above all else. And they know that something in Boston is going to burn if they remove the name "Celtics" from their jerseys in favor of the "Sam Adams" logo. I know they bent over and took it when they had to buy tickets to the FleetCenter (now TD Banknorth Garden), but the Celtics have never changed their jerseys. Never.

Conventional numbers can't calculate the PR hit that a team like the White Sox would take for doing something like this. You'd need Pythagoras to come back before you could figure it out.

There's no way that the Knicks or the Bulls or the Browns or the Cowboys would go for it. The leagues didn't start this way, unlike in Europe, where they always had Porsche or Heineken plastered all over them. There isn't a deeply engrained history of outside sponsorship for American teams. Almost all of them were started by rich businessmen and private investors. There was no need to ask GM to sponsor the NBA or NFL or MLB, because the owners made their fortunes by investing in GM to begin with. Or in meatpacking plants. Candy sales. Whatever.

As a result, our sports franchises are brands unto themselves. Realistically, they could sponsor someone else's products. The American pro sports logo just as recognizable, if not more, than any product that's looking to replace it. How many cricket teams do you know that could do that?

Not only that, they'd have to be afraid to lose jersey sales. That's a huge revenue stream for teams. Every year, people shell out up to $300 for authentic jerseys like the ones the players wear, but how quickly are you going to rush out to buy a Kobe jersey that says "Staples"across the front? The best that they can hope for is a small logo off to the side, but making some corporate logo the centerpiece? Not going to happen.

Or at least it shouldn't. If nothing else, it just looks cheap. Just because it's good for Europe doesn't mean it's good for us. Just look at the Reliant Robin.