Marion Jones signs with WNBA team in Oklahoma

As long as it serves as a tax write-off and good PR game (and keeps the buildings open during the summer), it might continue to be semi-viable.

 

Yes, Sacramento is kaput, players already resdistributed. Last I heard, WNBA was talking about putting a new team in Oakland or San Jose next season.

 

Different time and all that, but the NBA and NFL had plenty of franchises folding in the first dozen years of each league's existence.

WNBA has a solid niche with their 5,000 fans or so per game, but that's all they have.

 

Only in Detr... oh, wait.

 

Well, the NBA severed its direct subsidation of the league a couple years ago (coincidentally the time Houston pulled the plug; since then the established franchises have been dropping at the rate of a couple a year). While the NBA still provides organizational and public-relations support (and the purely ceremonial TV coverage), since then it has been up to each franchise owner as to whether they want to continue operations at a loss.

And of course, since then, the economy has gone into a power-dive. Aside from their hard core of a couple thousand fans, going to WNBA games has always been a luxury/impulse decision for sports fans. When budgets get tighter, those luxury/impulse items are always the first to go.

The big-daddy NBA itself is having financial problems, not nearly as severe as some cassandras like Simmons would have you believe, but pretty significant. Keeping the WNBA alive will be pretty far down on the priority list of the various franchises.