A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN ... 10 YEARS LATER CULT OF PERSONALITY STARS, HELP FROM BIG BROTHER KEEP WNBA GROWING.Byline: RAMONA SHELBURNE Ramona Shelburne is an American sports journalist currently writing for the Los Angeles Daily News. Shelburne was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. She attended El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills, California where she was a class valedictorian. Staff Writer It's a little easier for Lisa Leslie At this week's WNBA WNBA Women's National Basketball Association WNBA World Ninepin Bowling Association WNBA Wannabe Nasty Boys Association WNBA Women's National Book Association, Inc. WNBA Warszawski Nurt Basketu Amatorskiego All-Star Game An all-star game is an exhibition game played by the best players in their sports league. The players are often chosen by a popular vote of fans of the sport and the game often occurs at the halfway point of the regular season, although this is not the case for some all-star games in New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , most of the questions that came her way were about the future of the league, the influx of young talent and how she felt about not being voted as a starter despite putting up some of the best numbers of her career. You could just as easily have heard the same questions being asked of an NBA NBA abbr. 1. National Basketball Association 2. National Boxing Association NBA (US) n abbr (= National Basketball Association) → Basketball-Dachverband (= All-Star, which, in many ways, is the most accurate measure of the health of the WNBA in its 10th season. Talk of whether the WNBA will make it or not is largely extinct. The little sister of the NBA has yet to show a profit, but league officials insist that day is just around the corner. Attendance is down slightly, but television ratings Television ratings may refer to:
``I think, when I look forward at the big picture, what we really need to find is another spokesperson for the next generation, for after me and Sheryl (Swoopes) retire,'' Leslie said. ``I have high hopes for (University of Tennessee The University of Tennessee (UT), sometimes called the University of Tennessee at Knoxville (UT Knoxville or UTK), is the flagship institution of the statewide land-grant University of Tennessee public university system in the American state of Tennessee. forward) Candace Parker Candace Nicole Parker (born April 19, 1986 in St. Louis, Missouri) is an American collegiate basketball player, playing for the University of Tennessee. She may be best known for being the first woman to dunk in an NCAA tournament game and the first woman to dunk twice in a college . She hasn't arrived yet, but I think the has the game and the personality to be the type of spokesperson the next generation in the league needs.'' Leslie and the other founding members of the WNBA didn't have the luxury of pontificating about the future 10 years ago, when the league first proclaimed to the world, ``We Got Next,'' in the rosy afterglow afterglow small amounts of light emitted by a phosphor after the stimulating radiation has ceased. Seen in x-ray intensifying screens and fluoroscopic screens. of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Despite the optimism created by the success of women's sports at those Olympics, Leslie and the other founding members of the league knew that building a self-sustaining women's professional basketball league “WBL” redirects here. For the CW Plus television station, see WBL (The CW Plus). Women's Professional Basketball League (abbreviated WBL) was a professional women's basketball league in the United States. wasn't going to be easy. ``We knew we had to work as hard off the court as on it,'' she said. ``You have to be media-friendly, you have to be a role model, you have to get out in the community.'' In other words Adv. 1. in other words - otherwise stated; "in other words, we are broke" put differently , wanting a women's professional sports Professional athletes are distinguished from amateur athletes because they're paid. Women's professional sports leagues are relatively new and most common in very economically developed countries, where investors are available to buy teams, and businesses can afford to sponsor them league to succeed out wasn't going to be enough. Most of the entries in any history of women's professional sports leagues in the U.S. have gone the way of the dodo. Leslie admits the same fate could have befallen the WNBA had it not had such unwavering support from its big brother, the NBA. Johnny Buss, president of Leslie's team, the Sparks, even said there were two occasions that his family seriously considered ending its involvement with the WNBA. ``We'd won our second championship and gotten to finals of third,'' Buss recalled. ``Everything was great, except our Staples Center This article has multiple issues: * Its neutrality is disputed. * It may contain original research or unverifiable claims. * It does not cite any references or sources. agreement was up, and they wanted to raise our rent and we'd been losing money in those years. But I basically talked to my dad (Jerry Buss) and said: `This is too good, I don't want to give this up.' ``Even though it may not be financially feasible for the Buss family, this is something I want to do. I love it. I love working with these people.'' Now, Buss said, the Sparks are getting close to breaking even. He estimates the team will lose only about half a million dollars this season, with revenues and expenses between $2 million and $3 million. The support of the NBA owners allowed the WNBA room to experiment. Ten years later, the league thinks it has the winning formula. ``The WNBA has really learned to accept who they are and who they are not,'' said Jeff Marks, the managing director of Sports Business Ventures, a sports investment and consulting firm in Century City. ``They were able to embrace the things they are good at and stop trying to blast the mass market. They basically said: `Let's pick our spots and market to our core fan base,' and I think that's really paid off for them.'' According to WNBA attendance figures, 70 percent of the crowds at games are female. What's worked for the WNBA is selling the personalities of players and creating a family atmosphere at its games. The growth of women's college basketball has also played a pivotal role. Young players like Diana Taurasi and Seimone Augustus became household names because of their success at the college level, and that popularity followed them to the WNBA. These younger players seem to be playing a more exciting type of basketball, too. Scoring in the league is up about eight points this season compared to last season. Some of that can be attributed to the implementation of a 24-second clock, but there's little question the players are becoming more talented. ``The overall product, the individual talent level that we put on the floor, is at another level than when we first started,'' Leslie said. ``And it's only going to get better.'' Leslie and the other founding members of the league are coming into the twilight of their careers. In another few years, most will have retired. Buss said this season will be his last as president of the Sparks. He'll hand the team off to one of his sisters, Jeanieor Janie, after the season. Neither Leslie nor Buss will be worried about the long-term viability of the league after they leave. ``(WNBA president) Donna Orender e-mailed me the other day and said: `Johnny, every time I talk to you, I think about the movie `A League of Their Own'' ``Her favorite quote from the movie is this line where Tom Hanks' character says: `It's supposed to be hard, if it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. But the hard is what makes it fun.''' ramona.shelburne@dailynews.com (818) 713-3617 CAPTION(S): 4 photos, 2 boxes Photo: (1 -- color) Sparks center Lisa Leslie, right, and other WNBA stars gathered last week in New York for the league's 10th annual All-Star Game. Julie Jacobson/Associated Press (2 -- color) A fan at the WNBA All-Star Game on Wednesday shows pride in the league. Jesse D. Garrabrant/Getty Images (3) no caption (Penny Toler) Todd Warshaw/Getty Images (4) no caption (Lisa Leslie) Box: (1) SPARKS at MINNESOTA - Daily News (2) WNBA TIMELINE |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion