Report: WNBA RIP next year

It's women's basketball. If you're expecting NBA quality......

 

I don't expect it'll happen, but I can see a good few of those predictions coming true. Particularly the magazine ones, Nook and LivingSocial. JC Penney has rewritten the book on shooting itselves in the arse, but they'll survive in some capacity, even if it's just the trademark being picked up by a website.

 

Seems like the only way Nook disappears is if B&M does.

 

It is true that Stern has personal cred tied up in the WNBA while Silver does not, and also a vote by NBA owners to pull the plug completely on WNBA support/affiliation while Stern is still in the chair would be taken as a personal rebuke.

Once Stern is gone that doesn't apply any more.

I give it a full year after Stern steps away. If they don't start boosting their attendance and TV ratings numbers, next season will be it.

The "WNBA" may survive in some reduced form, but it will be called something else, and probably continue in much smaller/less expensive arenas.

 

If JC Penney goes, there will soon be an empty end of the building at hundreds of malls, which usually ends in the death of one hallway at a mall, which often has a chain reaction effect on the whole mall. I think it would behoove the economy for Penneys to right its ship, which I think it can do by going back to the model that sustained it. Getting rid of that lame-ass square logo wouldn't hurt either.

 

My point exactly. How long is the NBA willing to financially back a league that can't be self-sustaining?

 

How much is the NBA subsidizing the league? I know a lot of the teams are no longer owned by the NBA owners, although they are using the arenas.

Aren't there teams in non-NBA city's too, like Tulsa and the Connecticut squad?

I wouldn't cross the street to watch a WNBA game, but I'm guessing it has its niche and could work with less overhead in the right cities.

 

Three points:

1) That website makes 10 predictions like this every year, and the vast majority are wrong.

2) Stern serves the owners. If they were anxious to kill the WNBA, the WNBA would likely be dead by now. I don't buy the argument that everybody but Stern is waiting for the chance to kill it.

3) It says the attendance is "awful" at 7,400. I don't know, is that really awful? It's women's basketball. That doesn't strike me as particularly awful. There are relatively few recognizable names and it's a less-that-thrilling product for the typical sports fan. Is everything a crashing failure if it draws fewer fans than the NFL or NBA? The salaries in the WNBA are negligible and the front offices tend to have major overlap with the NBA teams in the same cities, so it can't be that great a money drain. (I realize the article says most teams are believed to be losing money, but the league made roughly the same claim about the NBA during the lockout.)

 

Answering my own question (from Wikipedia)
Many WNBA teams have NBA counterparts and play in the same arena. The Connecticut Sun, Seattle Storm, and Tulsa Shock are the only current teams to play without sharing the market with an NBA team (although the Storm shared a market with the Seattle SuperSonics before that team's relocation). In addition to those three teams, the Chicago Sky is the only other team that does not share an arena with an NBA counterpart. The four aforementioned franchises, along with the Atlanta Dream and the Los Angeles Sparks are all independently owned. This independent ownership is important to the WNBA's growth; at one time, all teams in the league were owned by the NBA.

 

A lot of NBA teams were drawing crowds of 7,400 back in the early '80s.

 

When the NBA doesn't require a partner network to cover the WNBA - then the league is done. As it is, most of the players view the league as an off-season from their more lucrative gigs elsewhere. But then again, if the D-League has a TV contract, I don't see the WNBA going anywhere.

 

Of the 7400/game how many paid face value