Jags
Mildly Disturbed
The salespeople? You think people tune in for a sporting event because they saw a commercial? People are aware the WNBA exists, they just don't give a shit. Fans of the sport are going to dedicate their dollar and time to the superior product, and the ones that think the WNBA qualifies are already fans. There's just not that many of them.
You think the WNBA hasn't done what they can to promote the league; that everyone responsible for promotion at the league and team levels over 27 years have been bad at their jobs? Or is it possible that this is just what the market is with the NBA and NCAA dominating? Is it the media's fault because they don't cover it? Mainstream American sports media doesn't cover hockey either, and the NHL is fine.
Look at Angel City and the NWSL. They're putting out a superior product without market saturation. It took a while, but the league is drawing global talent now, they got a solid TV deal, and attendance is climbing. The top couple teams are bringing in NHL-level headcounts. It's got a long way to go league-wide, but if they can get it there and maintain it, more and more players will see the benefit.
I love women's sports and often prefer the women's game in basketball and soccer for a few reasons. I'm not a hater or a misogynist. But pro sports are revenue driven, and the players get their share of the revenue. When a women's league hits that tipping point where clubs are profitable, the money will be there. It's early, but ACFC was just valued at $100 million.
The #1 barrier to that becoming more widespread is the potential female fan. Women do not flock to women's sports. It's the ugly truth that isn't polite to talk about.
He doesn't put it nicely, but he's not wrong.
The Mystics won and I love them, but the Wizards sell four times as many tickets at twice the price.
60 million in revenue versus the NBA's 7 billion isn't a "salespeople" problem. It's the best women's league on the planet and still a joke because it can't compete for American viewers in a saturated basketball market.
The US Women's soccer team is awesome and I never miss a game, but the Men's Cup generated several billion in revenue and the Women's was a pretty small fraction of that. Doesn't help that viewership of their matches declined significantly compared to 2015, or that their final drew 39% fewer American viewers than the men's final in 2018 that didn't include a US team.
The USWNT gets screwed, no question. FIFA is as corrupt an organization as there is (including drug cartels). When you're sitting on three billion in cash reserves, you can pony up more than $30 million in prize money. They're upping it to $150m this year I think, so that's good.
As for US Soccer, they maintain that there was parity...
Meh. I agree with this guy...
Women aren't paying for the failures of salespeople. Women's leagues just don't draw the revenue. The viewership isn't there, the #1 potential fan doesn't show up, and no one is just going to hand it to them. It has to be done the way Angel City is doing it. Grassroots, smart business plan in an impossible sports market, earning every ticket sold. And none of that will matter if they don't figure out how to win. Their average fan is most likely fickle, so they better get on it.
