New WNBA Commercial

[creAtivetfh]

Did anyone else see it?

Basically said sarcastically that women's basketball is boring and nothing exciting happens with shots of Becky Hammon, Diana Taurasi and Candace Parker talking to the camera. The slogan for the WNBA this year seems to be "expect great"

kinda makes since but cool commercial none the less.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

Having seen the Parker spot, I've got a bad feeling about this...

 

[Monty'sBiggestFan]

Um...where to start....other that I continue to be mystified by some of the concepts the marketing people come up with for the league in the last ten years.

Unless it's changed from what I saw...the answer to the question poised in the commercial for most people they might be aiming for is perhaps "I don't know" at best or "Yes" at worse. Everybody who already follows the league knows better. So I'm not sure I get it.

 

[creative one]

Quite possibly the worst ad campaign this league has ever promoted.

 

[Shorty_Balla14]

hmmm

they need to decide on a specific target market and then consistently campaign and position their "brand" towards that intended audience. It seems like every year they are trying to lure a different group of people and that's where they're messages get all mixed up and confusing. One year it is aspiring girls (have you seen her), now with what I'm reading from this thread, i guess theyre targeting the haters this year. I have soo many ideas for them. I wish i could be their marketing director! lol

 

[Monty'sBiggestFan]

Quite possibly the worst ad campaign this league has ever promoted.

lol...and here I was trying to be nice....

I could easily be persuaded to vote it as the worst ever, since it has been a long time since I saw a "This Is Who I Am" commercial...which I thought they could not possibly do worse than...

Shorty, you thought Have You Seen Her was directed at aspiring girls?

 

[Shorty_Balla14]

^^ ya...after i thought about it i was kinda like ya have you seen her could be directed toward a very broad audience, but idk it kinda felt like it had the whole "wow, i could be her someday" kinda vibe. eh, idk.


edit: ok i just went to the wnba page and saw the 3 ads and i'm going to have to disagree with you all. I liked it.

 

[1kingzfan]

I have not seen any of the new WNBA marketing material for this year, but I recalled hearing about a big push to market male fans this year by the Monarchs, an apparent about-face from pushing to deepen the already-solid female fan base. Over the last few years, I have participated in several one-on-one discussions with sales representatives and management staff with MS&E (including Ruthie) about potential ideas and changes to greater appeal to men, so I have some lingering interest in this topic.

Anyway, here are links to 3 pieces on WNBA marketing that I found interesting and perhaps tangentially related to the topic in this thread. The first is the recent piece in SBJ about the new Monarchs' marketing approach to allure more male fans (not much detail here, except that they want to push player athleticism).

http://sacramento.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2008/05/05/story11.html

The second one is a Sacramento Bee piece from last summer with a little detail about marketing and attendance levels up to that point.

http://www.sacbee.com/352/v-print/story/203254.html

The final one is two years old from seattlepi.com that recommends in great detail that men should be forgotten about with any marketing pushes.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/wnba/270866_miller19.html

All 3 may have been posted here in previous threads, but I found them all interesting.

In general, in order for the WNBA to penetrate into the heretofore disinterested majority portion of male group, some changes would have to be made in the game itself. That does not appear to be likely, based on my discussions referenced above. As a result, the WNBA is left with its future sustained success in the court of whether or not it can expand its appeal to the heretofore disinterested/untapped female group or to merely continue as it has and to be in large part subsidized by the big-brother NBA, big brother casino, and/or other source that could disappear at the wave of a hand.

 

[Monty'sBiggestFan]

Marketing to the disinterested of whichever gender to me is a continued waste of time and money. Those folks by their very definition already know about something and still don't or won't care.

I still doubt very seriously that changes to the game will make a whole lot of difference to most folks either because the percentage of the disinterested IMO who will change their behavior to become interested if some changes are made in how the women play the game is miniscule.

Now if we're talking about an untapped market, that's an entirely different story. The present Expect Great campaign from what I've seen if it, may miss these folks entirely. I don't see how people who haven't seen something can answer the question raised in the ads because the ads start with a negative tone (albeit sarcastic) that I guess an untapped viewer is supposed to infer a positive from just based on the words on the screen of something s/he hasn't experienced. Umm...I guess that's worked somewhere... "In hard economic times, come spend your money on crap :wink:wink: (we're just kidding, it's good, trust us we wouldn't lie since we have no vested interest)"


The PI piece I think has a nugget in it that I and other folks have been railing on for a while, the experience sells itself and it may very well be a niche sell. And you know what? That's ok. You have to get people in the door because once they come they tend to come back. However they design the marketing to sell the experience, I think will go a long way to being worlds better than the way they've gone about trying to market the W to date. If the Ms plan on selling the athleticism, awesome. It's better than trying to sell the midrifts.

The problem to me tho, is trying to pick one gender to sell to. That to me is just as shortsided as not having a strategy at all. Both genders have money to spend, both have pockets of untaps who need to be reached out to to see the value of the WNBA relative to the money spent to attend a game. The NCAA seemingly can figure it out without getting all twisted up with figuring out which gender is most important to have in it's audience. I can see why increasing the male audience is important, I guess more men who come will attract more men to come. But athleticism should be a selling point to a potential audience of all genders.


Big Brother casinos? Why is that a bad thing? In the case with the Mohegan group, they had money and wanted a team. How is that different from the Mark Cubans, Dan Snyders of the world?

Half the teams in this league now have no NBA affiliation and more monied people reportedly want in around the country. The league is criticized no matter which way it finds investors for its teams, so I'm not sure it can ever win that court of public opinion battle.

 

[1kingzfan]

Marketing to the disinterested of whichever gender to me is a continued waste of time and money. Those folks by their very definition already know about something and still don't or won't care. ?

By definition, those that are not current WNBA fans must be classed as "disinterested". You can claim "uninformed", perhaps, but not for many. The league has been around too long to hang that label on any sizable group.

I still doubt very seriously that changes to the game will make a whole lot of difference to most folks either because the percentage of the disinterested IMO who will change their behavior to become interested if some changes are made in how the women play the game is miniscule. ?

Changes to the game to speed it up and allow women to show their athleticism more than they can now are the ones that could make a difference to many men that currently swear they will never attend a women's game.

For instance, drop the rim to 9 feet and see what happens. It would TOTALLY change the women's game.

Now if we're talking about an untapped market, that's an entirely different story. ?

The MEN are the untapped market. Unfortunately, most men are not like me, as I am the classic "love the game's fundamentals" kinda hoops guy. Too many men fans are into the super-athletic moves, play above the rim, circus slam dunks, sheer speed of the game, etc. That is where they get their eye-candy and feel the excitement of watching a game live. To me, even though I love all of the above, these are not what makes the game at all for me. And I can assure you that 99% of the current WNBA fans feel the same way. Only problem is that attendance trends need to be reversed, and where is the greatest source of untapped revenue?

The problem to me tho, is trying to pick one gender to sell to. That to me is just as shortsided as not having a strategy at all. ?

It's not. The outreach to women has been, IMHO, successful, and is probably getting very close to "saturation". However, if you look at the league attendance figures overall, it's leveling out to falling, so that strategy is not good enough. Men represent the largest untapped source of potential fans. The trick is how do you generate the same interest men have in the NBA? The only answer is that you have to give them the same eye-candy that makes them NBA fans, so the game would need to change.

Big Brother casinos? Why is that a bad thing? In the case with the Mohegan group, they had money and wanted a team. How is that different from the Mark Cubans, Dan Snyders of the world?

It's not bad, in fact it's the reason that the WNBA exists at all, except that it also means that WNBA teams are hanging by a thread. If the NBA pulls its support, the league dies. If Mohegan Sun pulls its support, the Sun go down the tubes. Very different situation from the NBA franchises.

 

[1kingzfan]

OMG, I just saw the Parker commercial for the first time.

What in the heck are they thinking?

Absolutely dreadful.

 

[Monty'sBiggestFan]

The NBA essentially pulled its support a while ago, the league is still around. The owners in the league right now are fronting their own money to have teams. Twelve years later and the rumors of the W's death are still greatly exaggerated. Which isn't to say that it doesn't need growth, the league just isn't on life support and a capricious decision away from not existing. The teams are, as we have seen most recently from the demise of the Charlotte franchise thanks to a rather disinterested ownership.

Lowering the rim won't make the game better to those who are already there, it won't make the game fundamentally better to watch to those who don't already think its unwatchable. Won't make it better for those who haven't seen it already. That's why they won't do it.

I gave the definition of disinterested, which you seem to concur with. There is a group out there however that I can say do not know the Monarchs exist, twelve years later. I think that was hit home when the TV media does its man/woman on the street interviews during the the playoffs and people didn't know there was a team here, let alone that they should be at ARCO watching it contend for a title. What group do those folks fall into?


They haven't tapped their female market of untappeds. The higher percentage of the audience is just female. I'm not sure they have completely identified why that is. Again, as the PI column accurately points out another point I've been railing for a while, being female does not indoctrinate one to the glory that is WNBA basketball. Let me make another argument tho, I'm not sure the league or its marketers know why this phenomena is the case which makes it doubly hard to market effectively to increase the in-arena audience. I'm pretty sure I saw some market research in the last five years that said while the in-arena audience is predominantly female, the television audience is either slightly to higher percentage male than female. If that's the case. This suggests a couple of things to me, that there are more men who watch the W in the form that it currently has than people think, minus the lower rims, shorter courts, midrifts or any other idea that has been floated out there. It also suggests that there needs to be more effort placed into understanding why they aren't coming to games.

I don't care what gender somebody is...you have to give them a reason to come to games. They definitely have saturated the market of folks (male and female) who bleed the WNBA. Now they have to go out and compete in the market of discretionary/casual fandom to get people to make a decision between going to an amusement park, a Rivercats game, some other event in the Bay Area. That's a more difficult sell, one I'll continue to contend is more based on overall in-arena experience than affiinity for women's basketball. I think for the folks the league and local teams are looking for now - the basketball is going to be secondary. If some can be sold on the athleticism because they make assumptions that the game isn't this or that? Perhaps appealing on that level can work for a portion of the untaps. But they need a broader strategy as well to give people a reason to choose the W over their other summer options not to stop hating on it because the women can't shoot or need lower rims or whatever.

 

[NothinButHoops]

One point I can make by talking with Men & Women is that don't judge the game by watching on television alone. Some of the games on TV have been ugly. Get out to the arena and see a few games live. Many of the folks I talked with say they want to go, but haven't?

Last if you don't care for the game of basketball then lowering the rim will not help.
We have some players in the league now that can dunk, they don't attempt it that often. Maybe with Candace Parker coming in & if she makes the dunk a part of her game in the WNBA.....who knows.

Please get out to some games, then decide. The Wnba promises to much more uptempo & the quality of the draft has improved the game.

 

[1kingzfan]

The NBA essentially pulled its support a while ago, the league is still around. The owners in the league right now are fronting their own money to have teams. Twelve years later and the rumors of the W's death are still greatly exaggerated. Which isn't to say that it doesn't need growth, the league just isn't on life support and a capricious decision away from not existing. The teams are, as we have seen most recently from the demise of the Charlotte franchise thanks to a rather disinterested ownership.

Your first sentence is a fallacy. The co-marketing by the NBA is a big reason why the league has lasted as long as it has. Without that, at least at this point in time, it goes by the wayside. You can cite independent ownership until you are blue in the face, but the NBA is the foundation of the WNBA building. And if you believe potential owners will be lining up to purchase the Sun if Mohegan Sun Casino decides to abandon them, well, we will have to agree to disagree there.

Lowering the rim won't make the game better to those who are already there, it won't make the game fundamentally better to watch to those who don't already think its unwatchable. Won't make it better for those who haven't seen it already. That's why they won't do it.

You need to look out the GUY'S window here, rather than your own. I know why guys who say they will never pay to watch a WNBA game feel that way. Mimicing the NBA game is the ONLY way you will ever get them to try a game live. I am not sure that I agree with this from a pure basketball standpoint (and since I enjoy the WNBA game just the way it is), but it appears that if something is not done to stop attendance from falling or remaining flat, you will have more failed franchises and then the NBA will pull out, and then the ride will be over.

Why not experiment with a few game changes in the pre-season, market the heck out of it, and see what the reaction is? Miniscule risk there.

I gave the definition of disinterested, which you seem to concur with. There is a group out there however that I can say do not know the Monarchs exist, twelve years later. I think that was hit home when the TV media does its man/woman on the street interviews during the the playoffs and people didn't know there was a team here, let alone that they should be at ARCO watching it contend for a title. What group do those folks fall into?

I think those that do not know there is professional women's basketball team in SAC will never attend regardless, and they are in the large minority. Due primarily to NBA co-marketing, anyone spending money on the Kings, or just a local sports fan for that matter (ie, someone who spends money to enjoy watching sports live), know that there is a women's team counterpart.

In the end, this is a very difficult thing to solve, and that's why the WNBA has not yet solved it. My opinion is that if they do not figure out how to get more men to games, however they do it, the league will slowly deteriorate to non-existence. Attendance is on a long-term downward trend. That can only go on for so long.

 

[Monty'sBiggestFan]

I think your argument is fallacious then too, if we want to toss that around..Of course there would be other owners if the Mohegan group walked away. Why do I say that? Because since they bought in as the first independent ownership group in the WNBA, the league has added six more ownership groups like them and apparently has at least 4 more rumored to want to come in, which is why Orender continues to talk expansion.

The amount of money the league receives from the NBA has decreased, as there continues to be the expectation that they will begin to generate their own money soon. I could give a crap twelve years later what seed money was used to get this started, the fact of the matter is that the change in the league structure a few years ago has put more of the onus on the locals to pony up their own money and for the league to start generating its own sustaining funds. (See: ESPN tv deal last year...See Also: additions of more national sponsors...See Also Also: the hiring of Orender in the first place).

Mimicing the NBA game won't get the ones who won't come already. When Parker throws down her first dunk on Sportscenter, we'll see if that makes one iota difference. It didn't when Michelle Snow arrived in the league, it didn't after Leslie dunked.

If dunking etc..made all the difference in why people made the decisions they do to attend NBA games or watch it, why did the Kings attendance drop off this year? It's not that simple an answer. The talent and skill level in this league is much better than it was when the league first started and I doubt few but those already attending games even know that.

If the SBJ says the Ms strategic partner rate is up, their ST sales are up...why do you feel there is a downward spiral?

What the league is dealing with now is increasing their share of the discretionary/casual fan. You don't need to get them by mimicing something this league is not. It's not the NBA, the players are much more accessible, the game is much more accessible, the arena is more family friendly (they could work a little bit more on this) but the cost is more family friendly than the NBA is. Marketing as a NBA-adjunct is what I think caused the marketing problems in the first place. The sport is what it is, and can be likeable as it is once you get people introduced to it. The " I would go if the women could..."-ers, will always find a reason not to come. I think spending time and effort trying to market to them is useless. Marketing to people who have heard about the product but never went because they never found a reason to go or didn't go because they were spending their money somewhere else, need to be tapped.

Again, the NCAA has figured this out and has built and continues to build its audience a certain way. To think the W has an automatic market that moves along to the pro level just because is dangerous and one of the reasons they have untapped markets to talk about.

 

[Monty'sBiggestFan]

Addenda

Sports Business Journal

Discussion with WNBA Beat Writers about the league's growth and future (2007)
http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/article/112061

Another preseason preview from a business perspective...
http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/article/112058

Sports Business Group President David Carter said that the WNBA “is financially strong but that it’s important to avoid comparisons with other sports properties.” Carter: “It’s settling in to being a viable league but not a wildly viable league. It’s always going to be on the sports landscape but on the second-tier of that landscape.”

This is another theme I am partial to, and mentioned at the beginning of this tangential discussion and last year when we were having a debate with Carmichael Dave. The W is a niche sport..period. It can be viable and has shown that it can be viable with the audience it inherited. But it has in no way even scratched the surface on the audience it could have for what it is (without resorting to some gimmicktry to make it palatable to folks who "might come if..")

 

[1kingzfan]

All great points, MBF.

I guess am coming from a philosophy/expectation that the WNBA needs to become more than a "secondary" or "niche" sport.

If the lesser standing is deemed OK by those in control, along with the accompanying losing balance sheets or few marginally profitable ones, then maybe it can keep plodding along.

But the ladies will never have escalating salaries, they will continue to blow off the WNBA pre-season camps to get more money overseas, the gyms will always have curtains in them to make them look fuller than they are (unless they move to cheaper, smaller venues), and the league will continue to be dissed by numerous male sports enthusiasts who will never, ever come to sample the game in person. And the latter sentiment will continue to "rule" in the court of public sports opinion, regardless of what you or I and thousands of others think as WNBA fans, and that will continue to hold the league down.

You can say the hell with the majority of male sports fans, merely focus on getting more women through the turnstiles, and opt to keep the league exactly the way it is. I, for one, would rather see some experimentation by the league to see what could be. The NBA has made numerous changes over the years to change the game to appeal to the fans more (eg, 3-point FG, legal zone D) and make it funner to watch than it was before. Some experiments didn't stick (eg, 3-to-make-2 on free throws in the penalty), but at least the league experimented. The WNBA should consider doing the same, and not get so wrapped up in itself, turning the other way and saying that nothing is wrong with the game.

And, well, there IS nothing wrong with the game. You just will not get 12,000 - 20,000 paying fans a night across the league in the current format and approach. If 4,000 - 8,000 a night does it for an owner, and they can afford that or even turn a few nickels at that gate count, then keep it the way it is.

 

[Shorty_Balla14]

I dont think a women-exclusive fan base will be able to hold up the league. With that said, in my mind the W HAS to reach male fans somehow. (they should also continue to market to girls, tho i think the appeal of a women's ball league is appealing enough to not warrant as much directed promotion than is needed for guys) A lot of my guy friends, like many guys in general, make fun of the athleticism, or lack thereof, of the women's game. This has been noted numerous times already in this thread; however, I have to disagree with those that say that the game HAS to change in order to make fans out of men. Those that prefer the above the rim style are narrow-minded folk and as far as I'm concerned, aren't worth the W's time in trying to convince them otherwise. The untapped market of men we need to reach are those who enjoy the fundamentals, but have yet to give the W much consideration. For many of my friends, their attitudes change entirely once they attend a game. I even have some willing and wanting to go to their first WNBA games this upcoming season! As far as the game having to change. It will never reach the athleticism of the NBA, but it will get pretty dam close. Give it time, we will get there. Compare the first season of the W to now. it's a complete 180! the rookie class is only getting better. In regards to the W's current marketing campaign, I believe its intended message is to stir curiosity. And i believe that is what it will do.

 

[Monty'sBiggestFan]

As long as the money is greater overseas in the near term, the players will continue to go overseas. The money is not going to grow here overnight because significant amounts of corporate money is fueling the foreign league salaries, not butts in the seats.

I'm not saying nix the male population altogether. That's a silly argument for one, and something I never said for two. I'm saying nix chasing the ones who expect this to be the NBA. It won't be. Lowering the rims, shortening the court won't make it any more NBA.

What I am a proponent of, and I don't think this is gender exclusive, (which also is why I get so lit when the marketing seems to go towards one gender over the other) is marketing the talent and the in-arena experience, the close connection you have with the players here. That's what gets butts in the seats. The talent and level of play has and will continue to improve. That's marketable. That these players will actually give you the time of day and give a crap that you spend the money to support them is marketable.

Niche does NOT equal bad. It equals a viable existence to grow upon. Growth and proof of sustainability equals more corporate money and fans. More fans equals more money for the players. It's not going to happen overnight, and there should be no expectation that it will. How long into the NBAs existence did NBA guys have offseason jobs and have to fly commercial before the money got handed out in stupid piles? I know for SURE it hasn't been that long since the days MLB players had offseason jobs to make a living. How long did NASCAR exist as a 2nd tier sport scoffed at by most until it exploded and became the next IT thing?

BTW...I do believe you will get 10-15K one day on average around the league. And I do believe it will happen using the same format the league has right now. The league has to figure out the right way to market it to a variety of audiences. It hasn't remotely come close to doing that IMO in 12 years.

 

[kennadog]

Interesting discussion. I'm not for lowering the basket or other attempts to make the women look more athletic. I don't even like the emphasis on dunking to the near exclusion of highlighting other great plays in the NBA. I think Sports Center gets boring when so many clips are only of dunks.

Anybody not watching the WNBA, because the women aren't as athletic will still criticze the game if it's changed in this way. Their excuse then would be that the women aren't playing "real" basketball anymore.

Most sports are "niche" sports. The big "non-niche" ones in the US are the NFL, MLB, and the NBA. Throw in NASCAR, too. (Talk about boring). Anything below them is "second tier." I like hockey, but it certainly doesn't rank up with those other four. Some niches just have more people in them.

The WNBA just needs to figure out how to reach more of the same "kind" of people who are fans now. The ones who haven't come to games, but have a similar demographic to current fans. People likelier to be won over. I'm sure we haven't run out of those kind of people.

I think part of the problem in Sacramento is that there's no strong college basketball fandom for men's or women's sports. There's not an existing interest to tap into. I think a lot of people become sports fans in their childhood, learned from a parent or other close family member. It takes time to develop that. For quite a while, nobody thought the NFL was going to be viable.

That's why I think targeting youngsters is important. Reach them now and you may have a lot of lifelong fans who will pass their devotion on.

Bottom line, though, is we don't need to get everybody interested, just enough to make it work.

 

[Luv13fan]

Yup!!! Yup!!!

Interesting discussion. I'm not for lowering the basket or other attempts to make the women look more athletic. I don't even like the emphasis on dunking to the near exclusion of highlighting other great plays in the NBA. I think Sports Center gets boring when so many clips are only of dunks.

Anybody not watching the WNBA, because the women aren't as athletic will still criticze the game if it's changed in this way. Their excuse then would be that the women aren't playing "real" basketball anymore.

Most sports are "niche" sports. The big ones in the US are the NFL, MLB, and the NBA. Throw in NASCAR, too. (Talk about boring). Anything below them is "second tier." I like hockey, but it certainly doesn't rank up with those other four. Some niches just have more people in them.

The WNBA just needs to figure out how to reach more of the same "kind" of people who are fans now. The ones who haven't come to games, but have a similar demographic to current fans. People likelier to be won over. I'm sure we haven't run out of those kind of people.

I think part of the problem in Sacramento is that there's no strong college basketball fandom for men's or women's sports. There's not an existing interest to tap into. I think a lot of people become sports fans in their childhood, learned from a parent or other close family member. It takes time to develop that. For quite a while, nobody thought the NFL was going to be viable.

That's why I think targeting youngsters is important. Reach them now and you may have a lot of lifelong fans who will pass their devotion on.

Bottom line, though, is we don't need to get everybody interested, just enough make it work.

AMEN!!!
I think the WNBA is done a woeful job of Marketing to their base. There are plenty of WBB fans out there to make the WNBA work. The marketing strategy is all over the map. I think they have been convinced that they HAVE to get to the NBA fan base, or the Have to get to the go outside the base when IMHO the base isn't even 25% saturated.

Solidify the Women's basketball fan base. Get those former ABL fans back in the fold. Make another attempt to attract the College WBB fan base. And a real one, not a passing “Oh!!! But we reached out.” I realize that College fans don't necessarily translate into W fans but it is a far greater investment than this crap we are looking at. Not to mention most college fans bring the family. If you can get those folks to attend 5 of your games I would wager the attendance numbers on the whole would look vastly improved.

It is just a thought. Considering the league says it has limited advertising resources. Might as well use them effectively.

 

[Airfoil]

With respect to the original topic, the Catchings and Ford spots were cringeworthy to me. The Parker spot wasn't that great, but I could almost buy it. I gotta say overall though those spots are not a good look for the league.

For instance, drop the rim to 9 feet and see what happens. It would TOTALLY change the women's game.

Uh oh...I hope Mechelle Voepel isn't reading this message board...

Seriously though, I've enjoyed the discussion in this thread! I've talked with plenty of friends, uncles, co-workers, etc. about what it would take to get them watching the WNBA. The overwhelming majority of the fellas say they would like to see more...wait for it....athleticism. However, when they're shown "athleticism" it's not "authoritative enough" or "quick enough" or insert-lame-excuse-here. It's an incredibly tough sell to these folks and I'm not sure the league should focus too heavily on them. I don't think they should outright ignore that segment, after all they're typically young with lots of disposable income, but I don't think the primary marketing focus should be there. They need to try and grow that group as part of a larger strategy.

I tend to agree that attracting the casual fan is a more realistic get at this point. It's already been established that simply selling the "game" isn't enough. I think they need to more cleverly sell the rivalries (feuds even) and some of the more interesting personalities in the league. They need some hooks that extend beyond the sport that the casual fan can relate to on some level. I'm not saying the WNBA should go WWE when it comes to marketing, but provide compelling storylines that generate interest in the game and players. The player interstitials on the front and back end of commercials don't do it. The commercials they've been running definitely don't do it.

I don't see anything wrong with tastefully playing up the heat between players, teams, or coaches. Provide a little drama. The games themselves tell their own stories, but a casual fan's experience can certainly be bolstered by having a little extra context.

If Parker turns out to be the crossover star people seem to think she can be, that wouldn't hurt...

 

[1kingzfan]

Yes, very good discussion.

My thing is this...if the league has not penetrated the "new" markets that apparently exist in 12 years, outside of men in general, it just ain't gonna happen with some reconstituted catchy slogans, player profiles, playing up rivalries, greater player access, etc. Some sort of serious change is in order.

My thing on trying to lower the rim, just to see what happens, perhaps in a select few pre-season games, is not based solely on bringing the dunk to the WNBA. It is to stimulate the play above the rim that we see night in and night out in the NBA. It would not in any way change the fundamentals that the women seem to excel at more than the men, but rather would introduce a new aspect to the game, a new strategy to the game, and new excitement that could tap into that untapped male base.

And now get ready for another one of my opinions that most will disgaree with here... I do not believe that athletically the women are very far behind the men at all. There are a ton of athletic freaks in the WNBA, just like the NBA, with more being developed each year, but guess what? The average HEIGHT of WNBA players is a lot less than NBA players. That is the main reason we do not see play at or above the rim in the WNBA. It does notmtter than one or two or five WNBA players can dunk unopposed, since that does not create "play above the rim". So experiment with lowering the rim and watch the alley oops, battles over the rim for rebounds, and the overall thrill of seeing bodies skying in the vicinity of score-land battle it out.

On speed, I would say that average WNBA players are half-step to step slower than their male counterparts, but the speed has measurably increased over the years. I wouldn't shorten the court, but I would drop the shot clock to 24 seconds, like the guy's, to speed up the game even more.

Once again, let me re-express that I am in thge male minority in that I enjoy the WNBA game for what it is, but I stand by my opinion that unless you do something radically different to grab a chunk of the untapped male fan market, the WNBA is not going anywhere further than where it is now after 12 years and potentially attendance will keep falling and lead to the same death knell as all the previous professional women's basketball leagues over the years have eventually heard.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

My thing on trying to lower the rim, just to see what happens, perhaps in a select few pre-season games, is not based solely on bringing the dunk to the WNBA. It is to stimulate the play above the rim that we see night in and night out in the NBA. It would not in any way change the fundamentals that the women seem to excel at more than the men, but rather would introduce a new aspect to the game, a new strategy to the game, and new excitement that could tap into that untapped male base.

This is a horrible idea. It's not going to draw any new fans; the people that are already fans are going to be turned off by it. And, as kennadog alluded to, prejudiced male fans are going to dismissive out of hand, anyway, deciding that since they had to lower the rim, it doesn't count.

I also think that your perception of alley-oops is off; there are alley-oops in the WNBA all the time. Contrary to popular opinion, alleys don't have to end in a dunk.

 

[Monty'sBiggestFan]

The shot clock is currently at 24 seconds, the time to advance the ball across midcourt was also shortened to eight seconds as well to increase the number of possessions and scoring.

To say the speed of the women in the W is slower than the speed of the men in the M is to say you have the expectation that a world class time for the 100 meter dash for women will match a world class time for the 100 meter dash for men one day if the women work hard enough....speed is physiological. But a WNBA player may also be faster than a guy playing pickup in the park on Sundays. Speed is physiological and relative.

 

[1kingzfan]

This is a horrible idea. It's not going to draw any new fans; the people that are already fans are going to be turned off by it. And, as kennadog alluded to, prejudiced male fans are going to dismissive out of hand, anyway, deciding that since they had to lower the rim, it doesn't count.

Well, I have to admit that you might be right about the men. I really don't know, because I look out a different hoops window, as you do, than most men. All I am trying to do is offer some idea to make the league have a greater appeal to the male sports enthusiasts that are not currently passing through the turnstiles.

The women already play with a smaller basketball, so I see my proposition for a brief rim-height experiment as just an extension of that already-fundamental difference in the two pro games to reflect gender differences. I say, what could it hurt to try it without any commitment to the long term? I cannot see why existing fans would be turned off. I do not think it would jeopardize the "purity" of the game, as you and MBF seem to think it would, but rather it would add another aspect to it that does not currently exist. In fact, I think the existing fans might get a little more jazzed about seeing their heroes playing at a "different level".

BTW, I asked Ruthie Bolton about this directly a few years ago, and she said it had been kicked around only very briefly a long time ago and that the women players would never go for it....and she was not in favor of it.

I guess I am different than most here in that I just don't see what is so magic about a 10-foot rim height. A one-foot lowering would hardly be noticeable to most of the fans in ARCO, and I can't believe it would be "bothersome" to those watching in any way. And it just seems that if this is a purity problem for some, then the smaller WNBA ball also has to be similarly problematic.

 

[1kingzfan]

The shot clock is currently at 24 seconds, the time to advance the ball across midcourt was also shortened to eight seconds as well to increase the number of possessions and scoring.

Well, thanx for exposing my ignorance on this fact. It must have changed just last year (I attended only one M's game last season), and I just did not notice. As a result, perhaps the change was not as measurable difference as I thought it would be.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

Or two years ago. Close enough, I guess. And yeah, the WNBA ball is smaller but, seeing as how it's the same size as the FIBA ball, it seems like a legitimate tradeoff, as it were.

 

[StevenHW]

Well, thanx for exposing my ignorance on this fact. It must have changed just last year (I attended only one M's game last season), and I just did not notice...

IIRC, the 24-second shot clock took place effective during the 2006 season. Also that same year, the WNBA changed the time format from two 20-minute halves into four 10-minute periods.

 

[1kingzfan]

And the 8-second backcourt advance rule didn't kick in until last season.

On quick research, quite a few WNBA rule changes in recent years to sync up with the men's game.