WookieOnRitalin wrote:I think I concur that it is great to see the Sky win the championship, but I have to get some thoughts off my chest. I have not read much in this thread (full disclosure).
I am going to take a real bad position here and it's not that I want to be antagonistic or misogynistic, but here's my question. How long do they plan to keep this league going? They have tried to find a variety of ways to make the WNBA interesting and profitable, but it seems none of it has worked. Female audiences do not even tune in who you would think would be its biggest supporters considering it is one of the few female professional leagues that exists.
Systemically, the WNBA is an afterthought to the majority of the sports public. It appears to me that most people view it as something think should exist, but have no interest in supporting because, well, it's not as interesting as other sports (almost 100% male). This is not a slight on the women who play the game. They work hard. They play hard, but after almost 25 years, the league is a loser. Without the NBA, the league does not exist. Seen another way, the NBA generates 3x the revenue in one week of play than the WNBA generates in its entirety.
The WNBA is losing about 10M per year based on a google search. It's hard to figure out how accurate that is, because it seems like the revenue projection numbers are really old and people just keep carrying forward in new articles because they can't find better ones. That said, since it's the only number we have, let's go with it. Relative to the amount invested that is peanuts and compared to the people doing the investing it is peanuts. At 10M a year loss, it likely means at least 1-2 of the franchises run at a profit.
Either way, as a financial institution, the league may not keep going indefinitely, but it isn't in some massive financial peril here. It has extremely wealthy investors that can afford these losses more or less indefinitely.
Also, there are many leagues that have attempted to take off and keep going despite low returns/small results initially. There was a time when there were probably a dozen companies in the MMA field that were all trying to make it big and eventually MMA turned into a real sport worth billions.
The WNBA probably won't do that, but it isn't insane to think it might become bigger over time either.
The Sky winning the championship has a similar feel to the Wolves winning championships in the old IHL days. Cool, but ultimately forgettable. Let's be honest here. How many posters here really have an emotional connection to the team, league, and players to the same level as the Chicago Bulls. Think about why that is and what makes it so different and lastly, do you think that it will ever change?
In the sense that the league isn't that popular, it will not stamp a permanent notch in Chicago's psyche. Probably a huge amount of people didn't know it happened anyway. The league just isn't that big. Same with any minor chicago sports team winning like if the Chicago fire (I don't even thihnk they're called that anymore or even know if they still exist) won a title. I might think "neat" but then not remember. The WNBA resonates a bit more for me than that, but not tons more.
Do I think it will ever change? If I had to guess, I'd say no. However, that's different from saying I think it can never change. I think it absolutely could. The odds are stacked against any small business turning into something worth 60B or so like the NBA though. It doesn't mean they should all give up and stop trying. As a comparison, the WNBA makes 6x the revenue of the Arena Football League in its last year, but I never thought "man I can't believe the gall of these Arena Football people trying to run a league", I was a little sad when Arena football ended.
I'm not trying to shame you into watching the WNBA or to care about it or to choose your priorities, but it's such a weird take to be like "the people who own and fund this business should just give up, no one will ever watch women's basketball".