I just don’t understand how the WNBA is still in business, despite nobody caring about it. It’s so irrelevant, people don’t even bet on games.
When you took a survey to determine whether people cared about the WNBA, did you collect more than one data point?
You don’t hear people talking about WNBA games.
Compared to the pro men’s leagues, they don’t get nearly as much press, but that doesn’t mean that “no one talks about them.” The Chicago team is regularly mentioned during their season on the sports segments on the local news here. This link shows that the teams averaged about 6500 attendees per game in 2019; several teams had attendance declines, though that appears to be, at least in part, due to moving to smaller arenas. Meanwhile, several other teams posted significant attendance gains, and two teams draw over 10,000 a game.
Early in its existence, the WNBA lost money, and was underwritten by the NBA, though it sounds like the teams are on better financial footing now.
They have a TV contract (with ABC/ESPN, CBS Sports Network, NBA TV and Twitter), and I believe that they have much lower salaries than the NBA does. OTOH, their new CBA includes increases in player salaries, so they must be doing all right.
A few more details from this SI article from January:
- Originally, all of the WNBA teams were owned directly by the NBA; since then, a number of the teams are now independent franchisees
- Though attendance dropped by 3.5% in 2019, their TV ratings increased by 64%
- The WNBA’s salary cap is about 1% of the NBA’s salary cap. The WNBA had a salary cap of $1 million, which went up to $1.3 million in the new CBA for 2020. Meanwhile, the NBA’s salary cap is currently $109 million.
So, “how have they survived?” The answers appear to be (a) being underwritten by the NBA in their early years, and (b) much smaller operation and much lower salaries.
Just because you don’t hear people talking about them doesn’t mean they aren’t being talked about.
I would hazard a guess that our esteemed OP does not hear many people talking about cricket either. Nobody he knows bets on it. Therefore, it is obvious that nobody cares about it. How can cricket still be a sport then? How puzzling!
Likewise, our OP probably does not hear many people talking about organic chemistry? What the heck is up with organic chemistry? Nobody talks about it. Nobody even bets on it! How useless is that? Probably should eliminate it from university majors.
The Seattle Storm is hugely popular here in Seattle.
Also, and to be fair, if one’s context for “no one talks about the WNBA” and “no one bets on the WNBA” is from hanging around with traditional sports fans, and fans of sports wagering, and listening to sports talk radio, it’s probably not entirely incorrect.
Traditional sports fans-- particularly traditional male sports fans – have often been dismissive of women’s sports in general. I suspect that the WNBA’s audience is somewhat different – it likely has its strongest appeal among women, and families (especially those with daughters who are interested in sports).
It only takes a thirty second Google Search to find the WBNA pulls about five thousand paying customers a game. If you aren’t paying the players much, that’s plenty to stay in business.
The WNBA does run an operating loss most years. The NBA subsidizes that, because they don’t care if it loses money (and the amounts it loses are insignificant to the NBA.) They figure it’s good for the sport.
That attendance is higher than I would have guessed before this thread to be honest. Looking at the numbers over time, it seems to be decreasing fairly significantly. ~10k in the late 90s to under 7k the past two years. Still higher than the second division Men’s soccer league. Some of those are affiliated with MLS teams and running at a slight loss probably isn’t a big deal since they provide development opportunities.
All in all, ~7k people per game doesn’t strike me as problematic, especially with the low salary cap.
Some women’s college teams draw big crowds. A few years back Tenn. women averaged 14k, about the same as their mens team. UConn also draws real well.
I seem to recall hearing that many of the WNBA players are not getting a living wage and play ball for the WNBA as a part-time job, which they know will look amazing on their resume when they apply to grad school and to go into coaching and other front office positions with NBA teams.