Generally a good article, but:
1) WNBA franchises have zero value. So when she says NBA teams lose money in a particular year, it's true, but the increase in franchise value more than makes up for it.
Most WNBA teams lose between $1 and $2 million a year, and in years when they make money, it's not much, so financially, the league is not healthy. If franchises had value, and that value was increasing, then the WNBA would attract more owners.
2) Marketing does not drive interest. I was a rock critic for a long time, and using the music industry ...
In the early 1960s, record companies did all they could to keep rock and roll from replacing the Frank Sinatras of the world, and there was zero marketing for rock and roll. Except the Beatles, and others, overwhelmed the marketplace with the quality of their product.
In the mid-70s, there was no marketing for punk. It had brief moments of glory.
In the early '80s, no one in the industry marketed or cared about heavy metal. The product created interest despite resistance from the record companies, even without marketing.
And of course, there's still a lot of pushback against hip-hop, but it simply was too popular for marketing to overcome.
Marketing can help draw attention to a product, but then the quality of the product must keep the audience marketing has drawn. Most basketball fans have seen the WNBA (I would venture to say all), and interest is what it is.
Now, on the flip side, if you would have said, in 1990, that women's professional basketball could draw 4,500 paying customers on a regular basis during the summer, you would have been laughed out of the office. It's really impressive what the WNBA has done, and it's really a good league, with quality players and coaching.
But that leads to another of ***an's points that's misleading. She says that there's no coverage of the league in terms of what coaches should be fired, who should be traded, etc., but that's in part because the WNBA comes with such heavy political and societal baggage that many people a) don't want to criticize it because it makes them seem anti-feminist, and b) they want the league to succeed so badly they feel any negative comments will be used against it.
All in all, she did a good job, but like so much coverage of the WNBA, it was a little too worshipful and a little too "you ought to be watching." People watch sports to be entertained and for a lot of basketball fans, the WNBA just isn't that entertaining. It doesn't have to do with anti-female attitudes, in many cases; it's just that the game isn't as athletic and explosive as the NBA.
