Dribbling Against Tradition, Women's Athletics Take Hold.

With the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) just concluding its fourth season and the Women's United Soccer Association (WUSA) set to premiere this spring, professional women's sports leagues have captured the hearts of television broadcasters worldwide. Both women's leagues are enjoying success overseas with 47 broadcasters picking up the WNBA signal and several broadcasters presently interested in the WUSA kickoff. Mark Lazarus, president of Turner Sports -- which owns the international distribution rights to WUSA games -- explained that international interest would be heightened with the help of the Sydney Olympics this year, especially since SPORTEL will be held in November following the Olympics. "We expect to have a strong interest from Europe and Asia as well as South America."

Nancy Lieberman, president of the Women's Sports Foundation (WSF) and head coach of the WNBA's Detroit Rockets, expounded. "[Internationally, interest has] obviously grown leaps and bounds. Since the '96 Olympics, there's been tremendous focus on women's professional leagues, the ABL, the WNBA and now the Women's United Soccer Association. We've waited 50 years and we're finally to a point of respect in the business industry where people want to put money behind women." The WNBA's executive vp of Global Media Properties and Marketing Partnerships, Heidi Ueberroth, concurred. "As early as [the WNBA's] pre-launch, we had about eight to 10 broadcasters approach us expressing interest in carrying the games overseas.

This despite cascading ratings in the U.S. men's versions of those respective sports: The National Basketball Association (NBA) and Major League Soccer (MLS).

NBC has witnessed its NBA Finals ratings slip since Michael Jordan's retirement in 1998, while ABC pulled in a 0.6 rating (representing 598,988 households) in its first MLS broadcast this year, falling from an average of 0.83 (827,983 households) from each of its five games in 1999. After eight games on ESPN2 in the U.S. this year, the MLS has averaged a lowly 0.25 rating. Fortunately for ESPN, the sports broadcaster pays no rights fee for MLS games; rather, they split the production costs with the league.

The WNBA was inaugurated one year following the inception of MLS. Contrary to the drooping ratings of the men s soccer league, however, the WNBA's ratings increased from 1998 to 1999. During a press conference earlier this year, WNBA president Val Ackerman pointed to a 20 percent growth on the cable network Lifetime and a 16 percent growth on ESPN. She boasted: "We were just four games short of reaching two million fans cumulatively for the season. To give you some perspective, it took the NBA more than 20 years to bring in more than 1.9 million fans over the length of a season." Concrete ratings projections for the WUSA have not been nailed down yet, as an appropriate time slot for WUSA broadcasts has yet to be determined.

For women's soccer, most of the stars that are recognized internationally hail from the U.S. and will be playing in the WUSA, whereas in men's soccer, many of the U.S.-national team stars actually play for professional leagues outside the U.S. As for the declining MLS ratings, "It really doesn't affect the WUSA," Lazarus reflected.

As an indicator that women's sports have some TV-field staying power, the international interest in the fledgling WUSA league has already been strong. According to Lee Berke, acting president of the WUSA, the buzz is justified in part due to "the fact that Turner [Sports] stepped up very quickly to become a television partner, the fact that there was a competition for the television rights and the fact that we're getting sponsors contacting us." Domestically, some talks are in the works with networks such as NBC, ABC/ESPN, CBS, Turner's TNT and TBA and Fox about a national TV contract.

As for the WNBA, Lieberman articulated, "No league in history kicked off with the fanfare or the clout that the WNBA had. Three networks, averaging more than 10,000 [fans] a game, playing in major arenas. We started at such a high level, but we had to for credibility." Ueberroth continued, "Internationally we've got to be realistic, it is building. But leading the way with television, [the WNBA] has very strong prospects....The world is ready to embrace women's sports. But certainly on a global basis there's a lot of upside we've yet to reach."

Another magnet for international interest is the global contribution to the sports' rosters. This year, the WNBA drafted five women from outside the U.S. in the first round (10 overall), with Anne Wauters from Belgium being the top pick for the Cleveland Rockers. As soccer has more of an international flavor, Berke noted that "the individual countries with the strongest [teams] in women's soccer outside the United States will show the strongest amount of interest in WUSA on an international basis. China for example, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands....We're probably going to be attracting some of their best players to the WUSA."

A number of U.S. TV entities have attached themselves to the WUSA as investors. Some $40 million was raised this past summer from Discovery Communications and its president John Hendricks, as well as Time Warner Cable's chairman Joseph Collins and senior vp of Programming Fred Dressier, Comcast's president Brian Roberts and vp of Programming Investments Amy Banse, Cox Communications' president James Robbins and Cox Enterprises' chairman James Kennedy, along with Continental Cablevision's former chairman Amos Hostetter, Jr. According to WUSA chairman Hendricks, this represents an initial seeding of $5 million for eight teams. The business plan prepared for the launch predicts only $37 million will be needed for the development year and five subsequent seasons.

Attracting more interest in womens sports in general are the Sydney Olympics. Although the U.S. still dominates women's basketball, heated competition between the Norwegian and American women's soccer teams has driven interest in womens soccer. WUSA's Burke concluded, "It's a perception business and you need to take advantage of momentum. These events provide for a very positive momentum.

WSF's Lieberman reflected, "There's so much more focus on women in sports. Are we there yet? No, But it doesn't matter, women's sports is not just pigeon-holed into America, it's worldwide. And it's only going to grow..."