With college hoops kicking off this week, I wondered why there wasn’t more fanfare ringing in the new season. Then I wondered why I wondered that.
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Slowly, ever so slowly, the belittling of the WNBA among basketball critics is eroding. Memes are being drawn up, philosophies followed, anti-ladyball sentiments appearing more irrational and the movement toward the WNBA being a respected league has already begun to take root.
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This respect has formed from a) esoteric sports fans ironically liking the WNBA long enough that they just started actually liking it and b) bored NBA fans with nothing better to do over the summer but to fill the void with the WNBA. What both demographics learned is that the girls can play. They can’t jump worth a damn, but they play hard. They hustle and have a steady sense of the game’s fundamentals, spacing, ball movement and play calling … they understand everything casual fans miss.

Weird. That sounds like the reputation college ball has developed among people rationalizing why they don’t like the NBA.  What are they going to say to rationalize the dismissal of the WNBA?

The best part of college hoops. You'll notice there's nary a hoop or ball in the picture.

College hoops is a weeding-out process for the pros. A revenue churning operation for each school’s athletic program and a gathering spot for the student body. It’s also, depending on the month, the matchup or the fullness of the moon, an occasionally exciting couple of hours. What it is not, sadly, is quality basketball.

University basketball, like everything else college kids touch, is sloppy.
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I understand why college ball remains (and will continue to remain) popular and probably more popular than the WNBA. But just because I understand it, doesn’t mean it makes any sense. Does that make sense?
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So much of the average college fan’s reasons for preferring college over the pros sound good as long as you don’t think too hard about it. A consensus among NBA detractors is that the league profits from employing thugs who take five steps on their way to an uncontested dunk. This isn’t true, but let’s say it is. Let’s say sloppy play exhibited by athletes with dollar signs in their eyes is an accurate depiction of the pro game. I dare those naysayers then to explain their support of the college game.
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The college game – from a technical standpoint - is weak. Even when both teams play hard, they play poorly. With the exception of the few dozen college athletes who graduate to the pros each year, it’s like watching a squat version of the Knicks playing the Warriors … only without the massive scoring. Ugh. I just threw up a little in my mouth. I’m regretting that second helping of sausage patties. Why is this the case (the horrible play of college basketball, not the sausage patty part)? Because they’re kids. Most of college hoops’ players are only slightly above-average to begin with. On top of that, depending on the stage, they’re nervous or simply don’t have a natural head for the game. And did I mention that they’re kids?
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It’s perfectly acceptable for a newborn fawn to wobbly struggle with its first steps. Nothing wrong with it. But don’t try to sell me that somehow it’s a purer – and therefore better – form of running than a full-grown deer.
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Shot efficiency, turnover efficiency, shot selection, low-post moves; there’s a reason high draft picks come to the NBA and have to develop these things. There’s a reason only a select few rookies are NBA ready when they arrive in the league. Thousands of students play college basketball each year and fewer than 20 of them will make a significant positive impact on any of the professional teams that draft them.
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If it’s a principles thing with the NBA, a resentment that these athletes can hustle and run plays yet chose not to despite their handsome pay, fair enough. There’s points to be had there. But again, why would the college game be the answer?
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College programs thrive on the level of talent they can bring into the universities year after year. And the best programs – the ones that annually play the “best” brand of basketball, are the ones that field winners. And how many of those winning players on those winning teams do you suppose walk onto the court worried about their chemlab assignment due on Wednesday? In fact, how many of those winners do you suppose even have chemlab? The players that drive excitement, sponsorship, viewership and institutional popularity in the universities are the ones aiming for the NBA. It would be naïve to believe that because college players aren’t making money, that they’re not still playing for it.
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Let’s be honest, it would be naïve to believe some college players aren’t making money.
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The women’s game? Even the all-stars of the league are lucky to clear $60,000 a year and this is as far as a female basketball player can go. They’re not playing for anything else. Hustle, drive, teamwork, skill and this is the end of the line for them. Who’s beating the drum for them?
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In the end, I’m very capable of believing that it all comes down to the viewer’s own ego. You went to Kansas (par exemple), you were a Jayhawk. You were never a Bull or a Laker or a Mystic or a Mercury and you don’t owe them anything. You’ll root for Paul Pierce, Kirk Hinrich or Wilt Chamberlain because they were Jayhawks, but not really their pro teams. College sports, more than any other level of sport, allow us to legitimately feel a part of it all.

Whoa. College hoops fans actually gawking at Erin Andrews. I did not expect that.

And I’m not knocking that experience. Let ‘em paint their face, gawk at Erin Andrews, memorize lewd chants, co-opt their team’s glory as their own. That’s what college is there for. Live it up. This isn’t a brushback pitch against any of that. But this is a clarification that none of that is basketball. There are the naysayers who berate the pro game, ignore the women’s game and deign to call the college game the best basketball has to offer.

But those people are confused. They must be, because it’s not even close.
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Photos courtesy of Yahoo! Sports via Getty Images

This post does not suggest that women don’t have a place in professional sports. It does ask what exactly that place is, especially given sports’ current climate.

What is this climate I speak of? Well, the six women pictured above are considered among the best in their particular sports and most people can’t name half of them. Can you? I bet you can’t. And that’s the climate of women’s sport; a climate in which fans may have accepted female athletes, but haven’t come close to accepting the leagues and organizations in which they play.

Let’s see if we can’t figure out some of the reasons.

We’ll spend little time discussing those female athletes that have proven marketable. We all know players Gabrielle Reece, Mia Hamm and the highest earning female athlete, Serena Williams have been able to mix elements of skill, personality and physical beauty into a packaged persona that more defies each of their sports rather than defines it. It’s important to note that most of these athletes are marketed as individuals. Few female athletes on team sports have endorsement deals.

Recently NBA commissioner David Stern announced that his league failed to turn an overall profit in 2009 and that the WNBA was far more profitable. But considering Stern’s funhouse definition of “profitable” is breaking even, his claim lacks accuracy. The WNBA, in its 13 years, has gone down in yearly attendance five more times than it has gone up. Since 1997, the average attendance of a game has fallen 19.6 percent and teams like the Phoenix LifeLock Mercury and Indiana Fever are selling off pounds of their corporate flesh in order to gain sponsorship and stay afloat. The league isn’t growing. And in sports terms, if you’re standing still, you’re going backwards.

The leading mixed martial arts promotion, UFC, started as a messy $2 million business in 2001, five years after the WNBA. Doggedly fighting for recognition by the same mainstream media who also ignored the WNBA, UFC has become a $1 billion force, despite hustling in the same economic environment as lady hoops. How? Because the UFC marketed their legitimate fighting organization the only way they could: bu spotlighting the fact that they have he entertainment value of fake wrestling like WWE … except that it’s real. So when sponsors and fans alike asked, “why should I watch you when I already watch boxing and pro wrestling?” UFC was able to illustrate the niche they had carved out.

Women’s sports, including the WNBA, haven’t come close to articulating (or even identifying) their niche.

When an individual player gets singled out in ads, it’s because that athlete is special. Women’s athletic promotions have followed this same logic, but it’s backfired in many ways.  At some point, marketing whiz-bangs owe it to their clients to admit that some marketable female athletes are not as athletically talented as their male counterparts.

I know, I know. Boo on me. There’s a neon pink elephant in the room that no one was gonna mention, but I went and ruined it. Well tough, I’m tired of the room smelling like the zoo, okay? Campaigns like “They’re Better Than You Think” or Nike’s “It’s a Skills Thing” campaign are certainly pro-female athletes, but don’t address what about female athletics are failing to draw audiences and therefore serve the same ends as an anti-female athletics ad. Again, there is a differene between marketing women and marketing women’s sports. Nike is right, it is a skills thing. But that works against most female sports, because if a women’s skills allowed her to play with the men, she would. They know that. We know that. Nike knows that. Even your grandma knows that and she’s half senile. So when sports fans think about any specific women’s league, most think that it is of lesser quality than the male version of that sport. And if enough people think that for long enough, your league is doomed to go the way of Olympic softball, or the WUSA.

This isn’t like baseball’s Negro Leagues in the early 20th Century, where great players were not allowed to play against the established best. When athletes like Michelle Wie or Danica Patrick compete with the top male athletes in their profession, the media gives them an (over)abundance of positive attention. It’s unfair to say they aren’t given a chance.

In 1995, Nike launched the “Let Me Play” campaign in which pre-teen girls in non-athletic surroundings look into the camera and say things like, “If you let me play, I’ll be 60 percent less likely to get breast cancer” or “if you let me play I’ll have more self-confidence.” And this is where mixed marketing messages are ruining women’s sports. Does anyone cheer for Tom Brady so that his confidence is raised? Ben Roethlisberger maybe, but not Brady. Sports fans don’t want to be doing athletes a favor. Who’s entertaining who here? Sports are about competition; who’s better, faster, stronger. Ask yourself, why would you spend your time focusing on a collection of pretty good athletes when the best ones are elsewhere?

If the answers are out there, no advertising corporation has found them yet.

And because most of the largest female sports organizations have settled on positioning themselves as me-too sideshows, advertisers have answered the me-too, with a “no thanks.” Just last week, the president of the LPGA resigned following the association’s top players petitioning for her removal after having done such a horrendous job.

Since 2007, seven events have disappeared from the tour’s schedule, and only 10 title contracts are signed for the 2010 tour. The tour has also lost the backing of major sponsors, and the status of at least three other events for next year remains unclear.

[Carolyn] Bivens, 56, drew criticism from the players because she was unwilling to negotiate with sponsors to lower their costs of putting on tournaments. As a result, many sponsors dropped out of the tour, and players thought the economy was not solely to blame.

And the poor marketing doesn’t end with individuals or sponsors. Even penny-wise decisions are slowly revealing themselves to be pound-foolish over time. Last week, WTA’s former chairman and CEO Larry Scott, stepped down in order to become the commissioner of the NCAA’s Pac-10 conference. In his place is former WTA president, Stacey Allaster. Allaster is generally considered a strong choice based on her past accomplishments. She got the WTA a 40 percent increase in prize money since 2006 partly by expanding the group’s global television imprint. Without downplaying those achievements, or her successful quest to grant equal prize money for men and women in Wimbledon and Roland Garros, these facts don’t paint the whole picture. How did she make these things happen? She increased the amount of events that the top players would have to participate in each year, an effective change that some of those top players have complained about on more than one occasion. I’ll leave it to you to judge whether it’s positive or negative to earn more sponsorship dollars by riding your stars into the ground.

What about all the other female sports? Women’s MMA has two superstars who will fight next month. And who will the winner of that fight face next? No clue, because there are no other strong contenders with much experience. What about the newly formed Women’s Professional Soccer league? Well, hopefully attaching themselves to the MLS (similar to how the WNBA hitches its wagon to the NBA), will stave off the same fate as the $100 million now-defunct WUSA. Or not. And heck, if cheerleading isn’t the most popular high school and college activity for women, it sure is killing the highest percentage of ‘em. But if it’s not considered a sport, what are all those young ladies dying for for?

If women can compete with the best, wonderful. A lot of people will root just as hard (or harder) for those women. But where are they? The Williams sisters? Sure. Who else? Danica Patrick? Maybe eventually. Annika Sorenstam? She’s retired. Rachel Alexandra? She’s a horse, doesn’t count. In the end, every popular sport showcases what fans perceive to be “the best.” And with the exception of sex appeal, none of the major female sports has offered the average fan any reason to tune in. And none of the female leagues need to be told what happens when your fan-driven livelihood ceases to have fans.

By now it’s no longer big news that LifeLock will be sponsoring the Phoenix Mercury, placing their na

But rather than allow the remaining Western Conference to feel like the little Cambodian child Angelina Jolie didn’t adopt, I figured they might need some suggestions as well.

L.A. Sparks
Well among the biggest corporations over in la-la land is the incredibly obvious 20th Century Fox. Large enough to sponsor a team? Certainly. Look good on the jerseys? Umm… If they REALLY want to be noticed, there’s always the controversial and ever so slightly risqué route of Suicide Girls, also L.A. born and raised. Their jerseys might require a bit more modification than a simple name change. On the plus side, male interest in the WNBA just increased 1,250 percent.

Minnesota Lynx
So many choices in Minnesota, who knew this was where large corporation headquarters thrive? It must be a more comfortable climate for their icy hearts. Target, General Mills, Pepsi, 3M, Land O’ Lakes. Much like the team’s auspicious start, Minnesota sponsors have it made. Is this coming off rather anti-climactic after L.A? A little. Is ‘Land O’ Lakes Lynx’ still fun to say? Definitely.

Sacramento Monarchs
Sacramento…really. Well there’s Tower Records. Or there was. I’m not really sure that place still exists. Truth be told, I don’t think they even outlasted Media Play. Maybe Detroit has something to spare for them.

San Antonio Silver Stars
Speaking of auto-makers, San Antonio’s best bet would likely be with Advantage Rent-a-Car, as it’s basically the only auto-type business that could probably sponsor a team without having to ask them for a loan first. Plus it just SOUNDS like a company that should be sponsoring a rather under-the-radar pro sports team.

And finally, let’s wrap this all up with:

Seattle Storm
Only one thing to say about this crew and that’s that if they don’t become the Starbucks Storm then they are an embarrassment to Seattle and deserve to have their team relocated to some crazy place like Oklahoma City.

The WNBA Phoenix Mercury, have announced a deal with LifeLock, the identity theft protection company, that will involve LifeLock essentially buying out the rights to the name plastered across their jerseys. No more “Phoenix Mercury,” say hello to the “LifeLock

At first this comes off sounding like a terrible idea. Did I miss something or did we just make a pro sports league one step closer to becoming NASCAR? But the fact is, the WNBA needs help. I’m sure Lisa Leslie doesn’t live in a shack, but the “Air Leslies” never quite took off, did they? Half the women’s basketball players have to bolt overseas the second their season is over just so they can continue in the career they chose. When you look at it that way, selling out jersey space to a large company willing to sponsor your team isn’t such a bad idea. Don’t roll your eyes at that, it’s not like we’re in any danger of that trend leaking into the NBA.

Now LifeLock is primarily an online company, but it is still a nearby Arizona-based company. So as a service to other WNBA teams, I figured I would research some prominent locally-headquartered businesses and corporations and provide suggestions on which ones should sponsor their teams. LifeLock has already invaded the Western Conference, so I’ll start by attacking the East:

Atlanta Dream
Coca-Cola. The bonus here is that the Dream’s colors are already blue, red and white and Coca-Cola is well-known for two of the three. Turn those red and white “Atlanta” letters into “Coca-Cola” and you’ll hardly notice the difference.

Chicago Sky
The Second-turned-third City had some good choices, as to be expected. They’re home to Bally Total Fitness which could be a good link for an athletic team sponsor. There’s Blue Cross Blue Shield (Blue…Sky?) But above all else, these Sky-walkers have to know they’re living in the Land of Oprah. If they don’t agree to put Harpo Productions on their fronts, she might just buy out the entire WNBA. In fact, Oprah can’t be bothered with trivial things like that! She’ll get an assistant to do it.

Connecticut Sun
Connecticut? You have nothing. Let’s just face it, if the WNBA is hoping to survive on sponsorship alone, you’re probably going to be bought out by someone in Canada or something. I don’t know who’s going to sponsor you, but be prepared to be renamed the Maple Leafs or something (that one’s not taken, right?)

Detroit Shock
Well this should be an easy one too. How about Chrysler! Oh…um…hang on… I mean General Mo…DAMN IT! OK, forget all that and just go with Little Caesars. At least you’ll have the Ilitch family on your side.

Indiana Fever
There is only one choice here. Steak & Shake. Why? Steak & Shake Fever!!! You’ve just appealed to college kids nationwide and admit it, that’s a greater impact than the WNBA could ever dream of achieving.

New York Liberty
New York has their choice of well-known high-grossing companies of course. Calvin Klein to appeal to fashion-mongers, Dow Jones for the business-minded, MTV to hit up the younger trend-puppy crowd…but you know what? Screw it, you’re New York! The city’s name alone is better advertising than any New York-based business. You should be able to come up with enough fans to support a team even if it’s the senior female underwater badminton squad.

And finally …

Washington Mystics
It was kind of surprising I couldn’t find a good recognizable corporation based in D.C. that should still have enough money to throw around on things like using women’s basketball as their own personal billboards. There’s probably some out there, but … given the recent history of D.C. sports maybe the Mystics should just disappear anyway. Either that, or talk to this guy.

So now that the East has been wrapped up like a World Soccer team, stay tuned for Part 2 where the only thing left is to finish what the good people in Phoenix have started.