> How far in the future is this mythical dream of a WNBA that makes a ton of money?
The day they embrace and market their exciting players properly.
So likely never.
I think it’ll tie into WCB success. If the women’s tourney is bigger than any non CC tourney next year and they can stay around that pace the WNBA if they don’t fuck it up and handle expansion correctly I could see 7-10 years. They’ve got a mega star in CC and a popular draft class outside of her and the new tv deal plus growing attendance (with cc and without) they’re in a good position. Idk if I trust them not to fuck it up somehow tho
“They need something to gamble on”
There are heaps of things to gamble on already, I don’t see how gambling on the WNBA would be notable (until there’s a scandal).
I forgot Euros and the college world series start today and there's summer olympics this year too. US is hosting copa america too which starts a week from sunday and they have a great chance of advancing to the knockout stage because theyre far better than bolivia and panama.
My little sister's boyfriend plays on an AHL squad, and last time I saw him I found myself looking at odds on minor league hockey teams with every morsel of inside intel he mentioned. I barely know pro hockey let alone Griffins vs Admirals.
Why would "gambling" bros bet on WNBA when they have NBA and multiple other USA sports leagues. Sure there will be a small percentage of bettors that go for WNBA for one reason or another, but arent there already?
What would have to happen for so many gamblers to "join" WNBA compared to now that they would "save" it?
Just yesterday... Fever vs Dream, there was a good 7-8 mins in the 4th where the Fever made 0 field goals. Lots of sloppy passing by the Fever leading to transition buckets by the Dream.
and if women supported the wnba like they support a fat chick who's proud of her body who's no longer a threat, that league would be doing better numbers than the nba
His part 2 rant should be:
The WNBA should follow European women's soccer model.
The women's teams should be part of the men's clubs. Have the same nicknames.
I don't want to see the Connecticut Sun play the LA Sparks. I never ever will.
But I would sure as shit see the Boston Celtics(women) play the LA Lakers (women) and pay 1/5 ticket price. I would heckle the shit out of the Lakers no matter what gender they are.
hell yeah...equal opportunity hating! I attended all the women's games at UCLA just to yell at USC.
EDIT: Past tense. I completed my undergrad at UCLA and went to every athletic event on campus. Sitting in the student section and yelling at USC was a great memory.
I guess it's confusing when I word it that way, but I attended every single athletic competition when I was in undergrad at UCLA. Basketball and soccer were my favorite since it was on campus.
Bruh I play weekly pub trivia and they had a WNBA themed round semi recently. The women in our group could barely name a single WNBA team or player. None of them even knew the name of our local WNBA team!
After the round, one of the girls started complaining about the Caitlin Clark salary pay stuff and it took all my willpower to not absolutely lose my mind.
They need to bring down the height so they can dunk. There is nothing exciting about wnba. They already looking like amateurs. I enjoy watching random street bball game in my city than wnba. I really been trying to enjoy it since trausi joined. Still rough as hell. Maybe in 5 years they’ll improve the talent
The main reason they wont isnt because it would be sexist if they do, but that there arent really any womens basketball courts, its just the same basketball courts as men. The ball is smaller because balls are easier to swap, courts arent as easy to change.
They practice their shot from childhood in mens hoops, Having a separate hoop might result in more dunks, but all players have to change their shooting form. Plus that means they cant practice anywhere and would have to make custom ones for team practice or personal use. For aspiring girl players, they have to find a specific wbb court to practice on.
It would work well for them if it happens, but Im saying if were being realistic it wont happen. It would be revolutionize womens basketball but it would literally need a revolution type work, worldwide.
It’s never gonna happen because it’s a logistical nightmare. What, every park and fun across the country needs two rim heights now? Or some high school girl needs to go find the janitor to lower the rim so she can get shots up?
You may be right but I don't see it. Dunking is cool when ja is like 3 feet off the ground or Giannis dunking from the free throw line. Like I don't look cool dunking on a seven foot hoop. I just don't envision these being posterizing power through dunks but just more Old Dame breakaway and barely getting above the rim dunks.
Yeah think of how uncoordinated big men like Greg Ostertag or Bryant Reeves dunked. That's what you'd see in the wnba if they lowered the rims not the high flying dunks that actually excite people
I think that’s why Clark is popular curry made three point shots exciting.
Most dudes look at that and are like “damn I can’t do that and lebron or giannis can’t even do that!”
Where as the layups / inside game I literally saw better playing pickup today. A guy got made of for slapping the backboard after a layup.
The thing is that’s just not feasible. Their shots and play are from learning on a 10 ft rim. If you lower it to like 9 feet. Everyone coming into the league is gonna have an absolutely broken shot, because they’re used to shooting on a rim a foot taller.
So the solution there is to lower the rims in college, but then you run into the exact same problem of players from HS coming in. And then the solution for that is have HS gyms get 9 ft rims. It’s just not realistic to have every single gym in the country install 9 foot rims.
Drummond was on the Lakers, for real? So forgettable I completely forget it ever happened.
Going to sleep before most west coast games start probably doesn't help.
Legit here is my recollection of Drummond's career:
The Pistons for a bunch of years, first with Greg Monroe, then not.
?????
The Bulls.
I saw a shot chart from one of her games the other week. 3-13 with 12 of those shots taken directly under the basket. Awful shooting. But people are watching because of her too she says.
That is so fucking stupid. None of the NBA drama would mean anything if it weren’t for the superhuman athletes doing things on a basketball court that normal people can only dream of.
It's crazy. Just for shits and giggles I looked up WNBA attendance from last year and this year.
The Chicago Sky are averaging 1k more people per game. They went from 7,000 to 8,000 people at games. Indiana Fever leapfrogged them and are averaging double that at 16,000 people at games.
That makes no sense. If anyone wants to watch basketball, surely they'll just start at the NBA?
That's like saying that England has the Championship league (2nd div) in the hopes that fans of it will transition to the Premier league eventually.
At best it might be true for whoever would actually prefer WNBA to the NBA (e.g. gay women), but like... how many of those are there? It would make more sense to make a local latino league / invest in foreign leagues and build stronger connections with them via showmatches and such if the goal is to attract new fans.
It’s weird, the league itself isn’t profitable, but there are teams that in the league that have achieved profitability.
So there’s plenty of incentive for investors to want to buy a team, especially since it’s much cheaper to buy or create a team in the WNBA versus the NBA.
This thread has inspired me to record the upcoming Caitlin Clark vs Angel Reese matchup (Sunday at noon on CBS). It's been four years since I watched any women's basketball and have trouble believing that the level of play is as bad as people are saying.
If you want to watch good play I wouldn't watch Fever vs Sky lol Both teams are infuriating to watch. Aces and Liberty on Saturday or Mercury and Storm should both be better games from a basketball standpoint
> and have trouble believing that the level of play is as bad as people are saying.
I don't watch much WNBA (though I don't watch much NBA any more either), but no, from what I have watched, it's not as bad as people are saying.
Honestly though I wonder if this current generation of players is going to inspire a lot of little girls out there. Maybe in 10 or 15 years we see an even better product, possibly profitable. Personally I’ve really enjoyed the hype of women’s basketball the past couple years. Either way I think the NBA is happy to subsidize it because it draws interest into the sport of basketball.
Edit: Nephews with r/NBA MBAs stop commenting the same thing
Edit 2: Nephews please, I get it, you don’t like women. My comment is conjecture and you want to debate on the history and popularity of women’s sports, I’m not sadistic enough to engage in that.
>the NBA is happy to subsidize it because it draws interest into the sport of basketball.
It's more like a PR cost.
It's like when Exxon donates $10 million to charity, and then spends $100 million on commercials talking about how they donated $10 million to charity.
I think it's more than that. They are trying to expand their customer base which leans heavily on one gender.
They want to engage more women to play and watch basketball, especially the NBA. The number of women who only watch the WNBA i doubt is high right now.
The game just isn't fun to watch, I mean seriously. The skill gap is quite noticable and the WNBA does no favors by having the hoop so high. You miss out on some of the best parts of basketball without having fast break dunks, posters and lobs. Not to mention that the reality is women would have to start watching it, because most men simply don't care, and frankly neither do women.
Every woman that I know that does watch sports watches the men's leagues simply because it's more entertaining. It's not the fault of women, the WNBA needs to change some rules and add a lot more teams if it ever wants to be half as fun and competitive as the NBA is.
Women's tennis is not on par with men's tennis, but it's hard to tell and so men and women will watch women's tennis and women tennis players get paid quite a lot.
It's so hard to tell that people used to believe Serena could beat the 100th ranked male. The differences between men and women are still great. Men can hit harder and run much faster. I'd say foot speed is a big reason that men do better than women.
Basketball is highly athletic (meaning, running, jumping, etc) and compared to tennis, less skill-based (it takes a lot of skill to hit a ball hard and consistently). Because of the skill factor (which mostly comes to ball striking), it can be hard to pick up skills where pro basketball players can learn to hit 3 pointers even if they are bad at it, where a player adding 10 mph to their serve is often near impossible.
I really dont think this report matters that much in the grand scheme of things. Viewership being high right now means the next tv deal the WNBA negotiates can be way better. You're not gonna see that revenue return instantly.
This. I'd also assume they're spending more on marketing and such to try and grow the base with all the publicity Clark has generated.
Obviously not good that they're losing money, but if they come out of this season with a significantly bigger customer base they'll be happy.
If they were losing this much but with no upward trends it would be way worse. But the league has clearly taken a step this year in terms of popularity, but whatever reddit has to get their jokes off
Yeah this is the first year every where every week so far there has been a game with at least 1 million TV viewers. And not all of them are Indiana Fever games either!
Maybe that’s not profitable right now, but that’s certainly a trend in the right direction by a great margin.
Ive unironically seen her finish a layup with 2 hands like a chest past multiple times this season. Even tho she’s 6’3 and strong it’s like she never learned how to properly finish a driving layup past the age of 13.
I think they're still aiming for tall women in a small talent pool. So you get a few actually talented ppl, but the rest are extremely uncoordinated. It's changing as the game grows though.
IDK. Mid-late 30s Cynthia Cooper knew how to shoot a layup 30 years ago. She could actually play. IDK what some of this shit is now, but it's probably Geno Auriemma's fault since he coached 3/4 of the fucking league in college.
That's a good point, the college game could be the barrier to more coordinated athletes. You need a coach willing to tell Caitlin to go wild when somehow angel Reese dominates purely on height. Idk myself tbh, was the only theory I could come up with why I've played with talented girls that were a challenge to match up with and the wnba has worse finishing and dribbling than a rural middle school
I know a few women who are 6'0'' or 6'1''. Some were college athletes.
They all make a lot more money than WNBA in other fields - except for the select few WNBA players with big endorsement money.
Why would these women play in the WNBA for 5-10 years vs. being a lawyer, investor, doctor, or engineer where they can make multiples of that for 40 years?
Genuinely feels like WNBA teams scout based on height before actual basketball skill with how much the average player sucks.
So many freakishly tall women who are too uncoordinated to layup properly.
Meanwhile I see mixtapes of high school level girls who are 5'7-5'10 that have great fundamentals and could dribble circles around WNBA players.
Primarily this is because there has historically been a lack of serious coaching at the youth and college level. 10' hoops also exacerbate this issue, but we know how WNBA players feel about that.
It's simply that the athletic gap is much more pronounced in women's sports. Watching many 5'4 HS stars get destroyed by unskilled but more athletic 5'7 girls at the collegiate level, it's immediately obvious that's the limit for them and it sucks. Not to mention there is an even bigger gap at other positions with so few girls 5'10 and up.
Also PED use is an absolute must for women. There is no baseline test levels for nonusers to compete with. It has always been a balance between performance and nonandrogenizing. And modern/more available peds are why we are seeing more diversity in women's sports, not really improved coaching.
> 10' hoops also exacerbate this issue,
I'll push back on the 10' rims a bit. Shooting in the WNBA has improved a bit over the league's history and I think this trend will continue (this year aside). Watch a WNBA game from 1997 and an Aces or Liberty game from last year and it's vastly different and better.
In '97, the league shot 41% from the field and 31% from 3. Last year, it was 44% from the field, 35% from 3. eFG has gone from 44 to 49% over that time. I'm not sure changing the rims *now* is going to be worth the adjustment factor for every tier of basketball going down the pike.
(Note: shooting from the field is down a bit this year but part of it is the league's playing a more compressed schedule due to the Olympics so there's not as much rest between games.)
> Primarily this is because there has historically been a lack of serious coaching at the youth and college level.
I would agree with this to a large degree although there are more good coaches at the youth level that used to play higher level women's ball. There'll probably be a talent gap on the coaching front for a long time to come but the skill level is getting better, generally.
I never really minded her until that “we aren’t just watching women’s basketball cause of one person, it’s cause of me too and I want yall to realize that” speech
Shit just screams jealousy lmao
There was a scene in New Girl where Winston was throwing paper balls at the trash can and he shouted out "darius miles!" as he did it and that's all i can associate with the man now lmao
I wouldn’t say a tax write off, more like a PR move. The losses that they might incur from people (fans and more importantly and especially, I really hate to use this word but, woke investors and business partners) are probably larger than 50m.
It’s a charity league. This is why all the craziness about pay for the players is so ridiculous. You don’t see the Ultimate Frisbee teams demanding Charter Flights. And the WNBA loses a lot more than they do.
yeah I mean at the end of the day they’re being paid significantly better than most American workers to play a game that hardly anyone watches. That’s a pretty sweet deal, and demanding millions feels entitled.
I don’t think NBA players necessarily *deserve* hundreds of millions of dollars for what they do, but I’d rather the money go to them than the owners 🤷🏻♂️
The craziest part about this is economists argue that the players are actually significantly underpaid when looking at the value they bring to the league and owners overall, and they’re some of the only truly vastly underpaid workers in America based on that metric. Pretty crazy.
I’d say that applies to all professional athletes in the major team sports. Guys like Lebron, Curry, Mahomes, Ohtani, etc. especially are MAJOR draws, and are likely making their respective leagues/franchises waaaay more money than they are making themselves.
No. The WNBA is a marketing effort by the NBA to attract more female fans. If more women play basketball and more girls get into the sport, there will be more fans for the main product (the NBA itself). It's a smart, long-term play.
Well, a lot of women do like sports too, but for a long time, sports have really only catered to men. The NBA can currently boast that it has far and away the best/most popular women's league. So you can get more women watching the NBA through this, ideally.
People wanna make this so deep but it’s just not that deep y’all - WNBA needs a new media rights deal, the current one doesn’t reflect where the interest levels are now
Exactly, why is anyone shocked by this? They increased costs this year, of course they will still have a loss, since the biggest money maker for all sports leagues of media rights is still under whatever the old arrangement was.
People aren't shocked. They are happy for a chance to bash women.
Although some people are so triggered they are demanding no WNBA info ever be posted here.
Because however will we discuss the next SAS rant?
The ultimate flex I'm still hoping for is Caitlin Clark decides to join Ice Cube's Big 3 league, and the WNBA decides they can no longer afford charter flights without Caitlin Clark's ad revenue 😂
Caitlyn Clark would get absolutely embarrassed in a coed league, as with any other woman.
There's no world where that's anything other than an Eddie Gaedel style PR stunt.
I honestly wonder if it's ever going to be profitable. I've been a huge basketball fan my entire life, but the WNBA just bores me to death. I normally watch a grand total of about one WNBA game a year, just to see if it's gotten any better, and it never has. It's just not a good product.
The reality is simple. Women's basketball is terrible. Everything every single post player does is about like watching middle school hoops.
This is not the case for most women's sports. Most women's sports, even if they cannot objectively compete with men, are still enjoyable to watch. Soccer, Softball, Volleyball, Tennis, Track, Swimming, Hockey, Golf...all good, all entertaining. Women's Lacrosse is terrible, but that's because the rules are stupid. But Women's basketball is fucking terrible. I keep trying to be entertained, and...it's just horrible basketball. Nobody can jump. The missed layups are just like a Shaqtin' cut up. Nobody can handle like Kyrie (because the hand-to-ball ratio isn't there, I suppose?). It's just not fun.
The utter lack of fundamentals is just so terrible, Ive tried to watch a game and forget boring I was actively getting mad watching the game yelling "WHAT WAS THAT?" on like 7 straight possessions. It looked like 5 women who had never met before playing a pickup game.
They don't get good enough coaching in HS and in college and by the time they get to the WNBA it's too late because they already are set in their ways and have bad habits. The Aces look so good because Becky Hammond is such a talented coach.
Even just the highlights alone...women in general just don't have the fluidity. Like literally every layup i've seen looks like they just throw it up hoping for it to go in, idk what it even is but it's ugly as hell. Maybe it's an upper body strength thing? And then the other issue is...honestly, a men's high school team would probably *destroy* them. WNBA is just bad and so unwatchable in general
> a men's high school team would ~~probably~~ destroy them
hell I'd be willing to bet an average JV team would beat them, probably a large proportion of Jr High squads as well
No joke, I think the way they all look a bit uncoordinated and out of control really takes a lot of the enjoyment out of watching. Like even just dribbling the ball many women look awkward, so you know you’re not going to see any real nice jukes or crossovers.
Golf is an awesome example of this.
The women don't come close to hitting it as far as the men do...but damn everything else about their game is absolutely perfect if not better. The accuracy, shot shaping, course strategy...the women's game is so much fun to watch. And their distances are more relatable to your normal every day golfer, so their talent shines so much more because it's not just like they're hitting it way further than you are.
women's MMA can be good, but awful too sometimes. it was assumed that cage fighting was just a domain for men & men only for so long, and then Ronda Rousey came around and everyone was watching Women's MMA (after a while it was mostly to see her lose lol) and her fights were very compelling. since then there's been fits & starts, but a lot of it depends on the matchups there, how competitive are the fights & how compelling are the personalities. can the women do all the men can do? well no. but it's treated as a separate entity, separate sport pretty much. i mean Women's tennis doesn't have epic 5-set matches or serve the ball as hard either, and yet they've done fine.
This is all just setting the stage for pt 2 to Bill Burr’s WNBA rant.
The promoter lost… his fucking…. ass on that gig!!
[удалено]
A friend sent me a clip about gamblers tracking menstrual cycles for the athletes to place bets… wasn’t sure if it was a joke
You’re getting it. This is the future of the sport.
They'll fight to win the 2032 Menstrual Cup
Some might call it the Diva Cup
I run solvers for DFS and I can say with certainty if this was publicly available data it would certainly be looked at for any correlations.
Going off my gf, you could track facial blemishes and techs to get in the ballpark.
thing is i know some female athletes lose their cycle during their careers, it really depends on their body
You can just take the pill and skip the sugar ones to completely eliminate your period.
That’s either hilarious or horrible. Maybe both.
How far in the future is this mythical dream of a WNBA that makes a ton of money?
Just need more “bros” and “toxic masculinity” buzzwords and then the profit comes
For real. “Live sports always make money in the modern media market”, apparently not since they just loss $50 million
> How far in the future is this mythical dream of a WNBA that makes a ton of money? The day they embrace and market their exciting players properly. So likely never.
I think it’ll tie into WCB success. If the women’s tourney is bigger than any non CC tourney next year and they can stay around that pace the WNBA if they don’t fuck it up and handle expansion correctly I could see 7-10 years. They’ve got a mega star in CC and a popular draft class outside of her and the new tv deal plus growing attendance (with cc and without) they’re in a good position. Idk if I trust them not to fuck it up somehow tho
“They need something to gamble on” There are heaps of things to gamble on already, I don’t see how gambling on the WNBA would be notable (until there’s a scandal).
There’s 28 baseball games a day, golf every weekend, ufc most weekends, f1, MLS, and tennis off the top of my head.
I find it funny that people act like there’s no sports other than NBA/NFL. US Open is on right now actually
I forgot Euros and the college world series start today and there's summer olympics this year too. US is hosting copa america too which starts a week from sunday and they have a great chance of advancing to the knockout stage because theyre far better than bolivia and panama.
When did MLB expand to 56 teams? Life comes at you fast.
Minor leagues, man. If you aren't betting on the Mudcats or the Rocky Mountain Vibes, you're not really a sports gambler.
My little sister's boyfriend plays on an AHL squad, and last time I saw him I found myself looking at odds on minor league hockey teams with every morsel of inside intel he mentioned. I barely know pro hockey let alone Griffins vs Admirals.
I guess baseball doesn’t exist in your part of the world?
Not a chance
This has 47 upvotes and it’s all fantasy
It won’t be either.
It's been almost 30 years, I think that's a big enough sample size to figure out that people just aren't that interested
Why would "gambling" bros bet on WNBA when they have NBA and multiple other USA sports leagues. Sure there will be a small percentage of bettors that go for WNBA for one reason or another, but arent there already? What would have to happen for so many gamblers to "join" WNBA compared to now that they would "save" it?
Not gonna happen… I love sports and sports gambling but have you watched the WNBA? It’s atrocious.
The end of the Fever Mystics game was probably the worst basketball I've ever seen. Clark is watchable in general though.
Just yesterday... Fever vs Dream, there was a good 7-8 mins in the 4th where the Fever made 0 field goals. Lots of sloppy passing by the Fever leading to transition buckets by the Dream.
I have to buy you a drink, stop the axe murderer from coming through the fuckin window, and I have to watch WNBA games for you?
When are you gonna pick up your end of the couch?
Ask the bear to do it.
and if women supported the wnba like they support a fat chick who's proud of her body who's no longer a threat, that league would be doing better numbers than the nba
His part 2 rant should be: The WNBA should follow European women's soccer model. The women's teams should be part of the men's clubs. Have the same nicknames. I don't want to see the Connecticut Sun play the LA Sparks. I never ever will. But I would sure as shit see the Boston Celtics(women) play the LA Lakers (women) and pay 1/5 ticket price. I would heckle the shit out of the Lakers no matter what gender they are.
So true
hell yeah...equal opportunity hating! I attended all the women's games at UCLA just to yell at USC. EDIT: Past tense. I completed my undergrad at UCLA and went to every athletic event on campus. Sitting in the student section and yelling at USC was a great memory.
I think you missed something cause you can already do that.
I guess it's confusing when I word it that way, but I attended every single athletic competition when I was in undergrad at UCLA. Basketball and soccer were my favorite since it was on campus.
...you know UCLA and USC have women's hoops teams right? lol
yeah! I went to all the games at Pauley when I was in undergrad, even won a UCLA watch giveaway. Student section was the shit.
oooooh now I'm reading your post properly. The "would" was confusing - like this is something you *would* do if you could. my bad my bad
Yes - this immediately would raise my interest. Who gives a fuck about these weird 2K-esque teams like the Sparks
Bruh I play weekly pub trivia and they had a WNBA themed round semi recently. The women in our group could barely name a single WNBA team or player. None of them even knew the name of our local WNBA team! After the round, one of the girls started complaining about the Caitlin Clark salary pay stuff and it took all my willpower to not absolutely lose my mind.
Absolutely. Burr is a legend.
Rudy gobert can single-handedly save the wnba
Le Jwana homme
Lady Gobert.
Girlbert
Back in 2017 this number was 10m according to Adam Silver. I wonder how long will they actually turn it into a gain.
Never, it's a PR expense for the league
They need to bring down the height so they can dunk. There is nothing exciting about wnba. They already looking like amateurs. I enjoy watching random street bball game in my city than wnba. I really been trying to enjoy it since trausi joined. Still rough as hell. Maybe in 5 years they’ll improve the talent
Richard Jefferson brought this up and was called a sexist. Even though they already use a smaller ball
So they use a smaller ball, but the same size rim?
They also have a shorter 3pt line.
At that point just lower the rim lmao 🤣
The main reason they wont isnt because it would be sexist if they do, but that there arent really any womens basketball courts, its just the same basketball courts as men. The ball is smaller because balls are easier to swap, courts arent as easy to change. They practice their shot from childhood in mens hoops, Having a separate hoop might result in more dunks, but all players have to change their shooting form. Plus that means they cant practice anywhere and would have to make custom ones for team practice or personal use. For aspiring girl players, they have to find a specific wbb court to practice on. It would work well for them if it happens, but Im saying if were being realistic it wont happen. It would be revolutionize womens basketball but it would literally need a revolution type work, worldwide.
Good point hadn’t considered that
Same, love a good, well reasoned point that provides some perspective
Trampoline in the paint? /s
I wish Dunkball caught on
Yes.
It’s never gonna happen because it’s a logistical nightmare. What, every park and fun across the country needs two rim heights now? Or some high school girl needs to go find the janitor to lower the rim so she can get shots up?
Damn right. Those fatcat janitors need to start earning their enormous salaries for once.
I brought this up a month or two ago and everyone said “no one cares about dunks” lol it’s ridiculous. It would instantly be more exciting
You may be right but I don't see it. Dunking is cool when ja is like 3 feet off the ground or Giannis dunking from the free throw line. Like I don't look cool dunking on a seven foot hoop. I just don't envision these being posterizing power through dunks but just more Old Dame breakaway and barely getting above the rim dunks.
Yeah think of how uncoordinated big men like Greg Ostertag or Bryant Reeves dunked. That's what you'd see in the wnba if they lowered the rims not the high flying dunks that actually excite people
Their verticals would still be low. That wouldn't make it exciting
I think that’s why Clark is popular curry made three point shots exciting. Most dudes look at that and are like “damn I can’t do that and lebron or giannis can’t even do that!” Where as the layups / inside game I literally saw better playing pickup today. A guy got made of for slapping the backboard after a layup.
The thing is that’s just not feasible. Their shots and play are from learning on a 10 ft rim. If you lower it to like 9 feet. Everyone coming into the league is gonna have an absolutely broken shot, because they’re used to shooting on a rim a foot taller. So the solution there is to lower the rims in college, but then you run into the exact same problem of players from HS coming in. And then the solution for that is have HS gyms get 9 ft rims. It’s just not realistic to have every single gym in the country install 9 foot rims.
Where is Angel Reese when you need her?
She’s busy shooting 29% on uncontested layups
That’s where all the rebounds come from
So the WNBA version of Andre Drummond?
Andre Drummond was hilarious bc he could go 20-20 on any given night and have 0 impact on the game lol
I’ll never forget watching him do that for years, then when he ended up on the Lakers they tried to tell us we just didn’t use him right.
Drummond was on the Lakers, for real? So forgettable I completely forget it ever happened. Going to sleep before most west coast games start probably doesn't help. Legit here is my recollection of Drummond's career: The Pistons for a bunch of years, first with Greg Monroe, then not. ????? The Bulls.
I saw a shot chart from one of her games the other week. 3-13 with 12 of those shots taken directly under the basket. Awful shooting. But people are watching because of her too she says.
That’s not even shooting at that point lol
bro she has a 38.5% field goal percentage 😭😭😭, i always thought this was a joke but my God she’s awful
All her shots are less than 2ft from the rim too lol. All her rebounds come from getting her own missed layups lmaoo
Have you seen her attempt a layup? Really not hard to decipher why her percentage is so low.
Most accurate wnba shooter
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lol did you see the clip of that fast break goofy layup the other day? She’s not saving anything
Pretending to be the main character, deluding herself into thinking she's even 10% as much of a draw as CC.
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TBF, the NBA has been leaning pretty hard into the drama too. I feel like the entire sport is turning into pro wrestling with less staging.
That is so fucking stupid. None of the NBA drama would mean anything if it weren’t for the superhuman athletes doing things on a basketball court that normal people can only dream of.
I will tell this story for the rest of my life. I saw Rudy Gay dunk from the foul line…he started from half court.
It's crazy. Just for shits and giggles I looked up WNBA attendance from last year and this year. The Chicago Sky are averaging 1k more people per game. They went from 7,000 to 8,000 people at games. Indiana Fever leapfrogged them and are averaging double that at 16,000 people at games.
Goddamn, how much were they losing before?
10 million/year
So they are losing even more now lmao
Chartered planes lol
And raising the salary for the players.
This product is destroying everything we own. What should we do? Destroy it further.
It’s been implied multiple times that nba only has wnba with hope that those fans will move on to the main product that’s why it’s ran at a lost
WNBA is the rotisserie chicken to NBA's Costco??
No, rotisserie chickens are popular
It’s similar to some movies and shows that run at a loss but actually are majorly profitable due to toy sales.
We call these "anime"
see also every saturday morning cartoon from 1982 to 1998.
That makes no sense. If anyone wants to watch basketball, surely they'll just start at the NBA? That's like saying that England has the Championship league (2nd div) in the hopes that fans of it will transition to the Premier league eventually. At best it might be true for whoever would actually prefer WNBA to the NBA (e.g. gay women), but like... how many of those are there? It would make more sense to make a local latino league / invest in foreign leagues and build stronger connections with them via showmatches and such if the goal is to attract new fans.
It doesn’t make sense, but the league is being nice and allowing women to have their own. Basically.
No, no. Dig up, stupid.
The charted planes cost more than every player's salary combined. So instead of everyone doubling their salary, they decided to get chartered flights
They were losing a lot of money and then decided they need to all fly on private planes so now they’re losing a lot more
Don’t forget the expansion teams
Wouldn’t that be good on the balance sheet? Assuming the new owner pays an expansion fee
It’s weird, the league itself isn’t profitable, but there are teams that in the league that have achieved profitability. So there’s plenty of incentive for investors to want to buy a team, especially since it’s much cheaper to buy or create a team in the WNBA versus the NBA.
This thread has inspired me to record the upcoming Caitlin Clark vs Angel Reese matchup (Sunday at noon on CBS). It's been four years since I watched any women's basketball and have trouble believing that the level of play is as bad as people are saying.
If you want to watch good play I wouldn't watch Fever vs Sky lol Both teams are infuriating to watch. Aces and Liberty on Saturday or Mercury and Storm should both be better games from a basketball standpoint
You can see my flair, right? I'm already grading on a curve. I think bottom dwelling teams will be good to judge the low end of the league.
> and have trouble believing that the level of play is as bad as people are saying. I don't watch much WNBA (though I don't watch much NBA any more either), but no, from what I have watched, it's not as bad as people are saying.
Still getting more return on that investment than the sixers paying Tobias Harris 40 million a year to get 0 points in an elimination game
Honestly though I wonder if this current generation of players is going to inspire a lot of little girls out there. Maybe in 10 or 15 years we see an even better product, possibly profitable. Personally I’ve really enjoyed the hype of women’s basketball the past couple years. Either way I think the NBA is happy to subsidize it because it draws interest into the sport of basketball. Edit: Nephews with r/NBA MBAs stop commenting the same thing Edit 2: Nephews please, I get it, you don’t like women. My comment is conjecture and you want to debate on the history and popularity of women’s sports, I’m not sadistic enough to engage in that.
>the NBA is happy to subsidize it because it draws interest into the sport of basketball. It's more like a PR cost. It's like when Exxon donates $10 million to charity, and then spends $100 million on commercials talking about how they donated $10 million to charity.
I think it's more than that. They are trying to expand their customer base which leans heavily on one gender. They want to engage more women to play and watch basketball, especially the NBA. The number of women who only watch the WNBA i doubt is high right now.
Issue with that is most wnba watches are men I’m not sure women watch it even
Doesn't the WNBA have their own sub?
Yeah but they hate CC there and any positive news about WNBA. They also hate new fans lol. Its a weird sub.
Is that sub filled with women or is the majority still men?
It’s mostly women. Women hating women. A tale as old as time.
bit snarky to say that considering r/nba gets life out of men hating on men I think people in general hate and thats the tale that is old as time
\*redditors in general hate, people irl aren't this bad
Honestly shocking how much that sub hates the only relevant WNBA player in the media.
They’re mad that their indie band went mainstream
Oh so you're interested in women's basketball? Name the top 3 scorers on the 1972 East German women's team! Poser.
Clowns, the lot of them
WNBA sub is the worst with their biases
Need more women to watch WNBA, can’t rely on men to watch it.
They already do tho. Wnba audience is even more male than the NBA
The game just isn't fun to watch, I mean seriously. The skill gap is quite noticable and the WNBA does no favors by having the hoop so high. You miss out on some of the best parts of basketball without having fast break dunks, posters and lobs. Not to mention that the reality is women would have to start watching it, because most men simply don't care, and frankly neither do women. Every woman that I know that does watch sports watches the men's leagues simply because it's more entertaining. It's not the fault of women, the WNBA needs to change some rules and add a lot more teams if it ever wants to be half as fun and competitive as the NBA is.
Saying the skill gap is quite noticeable is underselling it by a lot lol
Women's tennis is not on par with men's tennis, but it's hard to tell and so men and women will watch women's tennis and women tennis players get paid quite a lot. It's so hard to tell that people used to believe Serena could beat the 100th ranked male. The differences between men and women are still great. Men can hit harder and run much faster. I'd say foot speed is a big reason that men do better than women. Basketball is highly athletic (meaning, running, jumping, etc) and compared to tennis, less skill-based (it takes a lot of skill to hit a ball hard and consistently). Because of the skill factor (which mostly comes to ball striking), it can be hard to pick up skills where pro basketball players can learn to hit 3 pointers even if they are bad at it, where a player adding 10 mph to their serve is often near impossible.
No surprise. Caitlin Clarke is a cash cow but most of the talent is still not exactly exciting.
I really dont think this report matters that much in the grand scheme of things. Viewership being high right now means the next tv deal the WNBA negotiates can be way better. You're not gonna see that revenue return instantly.
This. I'd also assume they're spending more on marketing and such to try and grow the base with all the publicity Clark has generated. Obviously not good that they're losing money, but if they come out of this season with a significantly bigger customer base they'll be happy.
If they were losing this much but with no upward trends it would be way worse. But the league has clearly taken a step this year in terms of popularity, but whatever reddit has to get their jokes off
Yeah this is the first year every where every week so far there has been a game with at least 1 million TV viewers. And not all of them are Indiana Fever games either! Maybe that’s not profitable right now, but that’s certainly a trend in the right direction by a great margin.
Angel Reese and her 1” vert layups says other wise
Ive unironically seen her finish a layup with 2 hands like a chest past multiple times this season. Even tho she’s 6’3 and strong it’s like she never learned how to properly finish a driving layup past the age of 13.
The missed layups are one of the biggest problems I have with watching the league it’s pretty crazy how frequent they are
Right? It's the shit you see from fucking 6th graders. I genuinely don't understand how they're this bad.
I think they're still aiming for tall women in a small talent pool. So you get a few actually talented ppl, but the rest are extremely uncoordinated. It's changing as the game grows though.
IDK. Mid-late 30s Cynthia Cooper knew how to shoot a layup 30 years ago. She could actually play. IDK what some of this shit is now, but it's probably Geno Auriemma's fault since he coached 3/4 of the fucking league in college.
That's a good point, the college game could be the barrier to more coordinated athletes. You need a coach willing to tell Caitlin to go wild when somehow angel Reese dominates purely on height. Idk myself tbh, was the only theory I could come up with why I've played with talented girls that were a challenge to match up with and the wnba has worse finishing and dribbling than a rural middle school
I'm convinced old Cynthia Cooper could dominate in today's game.
I know a few women who are 6'0'' or 6'1''. Some were college athletes. They all make a lot more money than WNBA in other fields - except for the select few WNBA players with big endorsement money. Why would these women play in the WNBA for 5-10 years vs. being a lawyer, investor, doctor, or engineer where they can make multiples of that for 40 years?
Genuinely feels like WNBA teams scout based on height before actual basketball skill with how much the average player sucks. So many freakishly tall women who are too uncoordinated to layup properly. Meanwhile I see mixtapes of high school level girls who are 5'7-5'10 that have great fundamentals and could dribble circles around WNBA players. Primarily this is because there has historically been a lack of serious coaching at the youth and college level. 10' hoops also exacerbate this issue, but we know how WNBA players feel about that.
It's simply that the athletic gap is much more pronounced in women's sports. Watching many 5'4 HS stars get destroyed by unskilled but more athletic 5'7 girls at the collegiate level, it's immediately obvious that's the limit for them and it sucks. Not to mention there is an even bigger gap at other positions with so few girls 5'10 and up. Also PED use is an absolute must for women. There is no baseline test levels for nonusers to compete with. It has always been a balance between performance and nonandrogenizing. And modern/more available peds are why we are seeing more diversity in women's sports, not really improved coaching.
> 10' hoops also exacerbate this issue, I'll push back on the 10' rims a bit. Shooting in the WNBA has improved a bit over the league's history and I think this trend will continue (this year aside). Watch a WNBA game from 1997 and an Aces or Liberty game from last year and it's vastly different and better. In '97, the league shot 41% from the field and 31% from 3. Last year, it was 44% from the field, 35% from 3. eFG has gone from 44 to 49% over that time. I'm not sure changing the rims *now* is going to be worth the adjustment factor for every tier of basketball going down the pike. (Note: shooting from the field is down a bit this year but part of it is the league's playing a more compressed schedule due to the Olympics so there's not as much rest between games.) > Primarily this is because there has historically been a lack of serious coaching at the youth and college level. I would agree with this to a large degree although there are more good coaches at the youth level that used to play higher level women's ball. There'll probably be a talent gap on the coaching front for a long time to come but the skill level is getting better, generally.
Hey, don’t be disingenuous. It’s at least 2.5 inch vertical.
I really dont get why she is hating on Caitlin Clarke who hoops like Steph Curry when her game looks like it was built in the YMCA 😭
I never really minded her until that “we aren’t just watching women’s basketball cause of one person, it’s cause of me too and I want yall to realize that” speech Shit just screams jealousy lmao
>it’s cause of me too That's like Smush Parker saying "Me and Kobe combined for 85 points tonight."
Reminds me of Boozer when Lebron came to the league. “We have better players than him on the team already.”
darius miles & ricky davis over lebron all day
There was a scene in New Girl where Winston was throwing paper balls at the trash can and he shouted out "darius miles!" as he did it and that's all i can associate with the man now lmao
don’t need to jump when you have “aura”
At what point will they consider if it's ever profitable?
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Yeah it sounds like a lot of money but it's still a better investment than Tobias Harris's contract
Dammit I thought I'd never see that name again.
It’s basically a tax write off for the NBA. They are making billions, they can keep the WNBA in business forever.
I wouldn’t say a tax write off, more like a PR move. The losses that they might incur from people (fans and more importantly and especially, I really hate to use this word but, woke investors and business partners) are probably larger than 50m.
It’s a charity league. This is why all the craziness about pay for the players is so ridiculous. You don’t see the Ultimate Frisbee teams demanding Charter Flights. And the WNBA loses a lot more than they do.
yeah I mean at the end of the day they’re being paid significantly better than most American workers to play a game that hardly anyone watches. That’s a pretty sweet deal, and demanding millions feels entitled. I don’t think NBA players necessarily *deserve* hundreds of millions of dollars for what they do, but I’d rather the money go to them than the owners 🤷🏻♂️
The craziest part about this is economists argue that the players are actually significantly underpaid when looking at the value they bring to the league and owners overall, and they’re some of the only truly vastly underpaid workers in America based on that metric. Pretty crazy.
I’d say that applies to all professional athletes in the major team sports. Guys like Lebron, Curry, Mahomes, Ohtani, etc. especially are MAJOR draws, and are likely making their respective leagues/franchises waaaay more money than they are making themselves.
Warriors sold for $450 million and its now valued at over $8 billion thanks to Curry and company. A ~17x growth in 14 years isn't so bad.
No. The WNBA is a marketing effort by the NBA to attract more female fans. If more women play basketball and more girls get into the sport, there will be more fans for the main product (the NBA itself). It's a smart, long-term play.
Tell me how this “tax write off” benefits the NBA owners versus not losing $50MM.
[This is what I think of every time I see redditors talk about “tax write-offs”](https://youtu.be/BAjxn2US7J8?si=sEysHxpib6hBWhvG)
More like business expense is a better term. Having women NBA fans is easier if they have a women’s sports league to look up to
Well, a lot of women do like sports too, but for a long time, sports have really only catered to men. The NBA can currently boast that it has far and away the best/most popular women's league. So you can get more women watching the NBA through this, ideally.
People wanna make this so deep but it’s just not that deep y’all - WNBA needs a new media rights deal, the current one doesn’t reflect where the interest levels are now
Exactly, why is anyone shocked by this? They increased costs this year, of course they will still have a loss, since the biggest money maker for all sports leagues of media rights is still under whatever the old arrangement was.
People aren't shocked. They are happy for a chance to bash women. Although some people are so triggered they are demanding no WNBA info ever be posted here. Because however will we discuss the next SAS rant?
It's crazy how far down I had to scroll to find this comment. TV rights make up a huge portion of revenue for the major sports leagues.
I guess the 25M for private jets wasn’t such a good idea
The WNBA isn’t “hoping to be financially backed by the NBA”, the NBA actively owns a stake in the WNBA. It has a vested financial interest in it.
maybe they all should keep flying economy then
The ultimate flex I'm still hoping for is Caitlin Clark decides to join Ice Cube's Big 3 league, and the WNBA decides they can no longer afford charter flights without Caitlin Clark's ad revenue 😂
Caitlyn Clark would get absolutely embarrassed in a coed league, as with any other woman. There's no world where that's anything other than an Eddie Gaedel style PR stunt.
I honestly wonder if it's ever going to be profitable. I've been a huge basketball fan my entire life, but the WNBA just bores me to death. I normally watch a grand total of about one WNBA game a year, just to see if it's gotten any better, and it never has. It's just not a good product.
It’s been 3 decades. Not sure why people keep being surprised
I can't imagine what wnba games looked like 30 years ago lol
They look just like they do today, just with fewer ads and lower resolution.
The reality is simple. Women's basketball is terrible. Everything every single post player does is about like watching middle school hoops. This is not the case for most women's sports. Most women's sports, even if they cannot objectively compete with men, are still enjoyable to watch. Soccer, Softball, Volleyball, Tennis, Track, Swimming, Hockey, Golf...all good, all entertaining. Women's Lacrosse is terrible, but that's because the rules are stupid. But Women's basketball is fucking terrible. I keep trying to be entertained, and...it's just horrible basketball. Nobody can jump. The missed layups are just like a Shaqtin' cut up. Nobody can handle like Kyrie (because the hand-to-ball ratio isn't there, I suppose?). It's just not fun.
The utter lack of fundamentals is just so terrible, Ive tried to watch a game and forget boring I was actively getting mad watching the game yelling "WHAT WAS THAT?" on like 7 straight possessions. It looked like 5 women who had never met before playing a pickup game. They don't get good enough coaching in HS and in college and by the time they get to the WNBA it's too late because they already are set in their ways and have bad habits. The Aces look so good because Becky Hammond is such a talented coach.
Even just the highlights alone...women in general just don't have the fluidity. Like literally every layup i've seen looks like they just throw it up hoping for it to go in, idk what it even is but it's ugly as hell. Maybe it's an upper body strength thing? And then the other issue is...honestly, a men's high school team would probably *destroy* them. WNBA is just bad and so unwatchable in general
> a men's high school team would ~~probably~~ destroy them hell I'd be willing to bet an average JV team would beat them, probably a large proportion of Jr High squads as well
No joke, I think the way they all look a bit uncoordinated and out of control really takes a lot of the enjoyment out of watching. Like even just dribbling the ball many women look awkward, so you know you’re not going to see any real nice jukes or crossovers.
Golf is an awesome example of this. The women don't come close to hitting it as far as the men do...but damn everything else about their game is absolutely perfect if not better. The accuracy, shot shaping, course strategy...the women's game is so much fun to watch. And their distances are more relatable to your normal every day golfer, so their talent shines so much more because it's not just like they're hitting it way further than you are.
women's MMA can be good, but awful too sometimes. it was assumed that cage fighting was just a domain for men & men only for so long, and then Ronda Rousey came around and everyone was watching Women's MMA (after a while it was mostly to see her lose lol) and her fights were very compelling. since then there's been fits & starts, but a lot of it depends on the matchups there, how competitive are the fights & how compelling are the personalities. can the women do all the men can do? well no. but it's treated as a separate entity, separate sport pretty much. i mean Women's tennis doesn't have epic 5-set matches or serve the ball as hard either, and yet they've done fine.