No Love For The Women's League...

Did you know that professional basketball history was made in the WNBA on
July 19th? Well don't be upset if you didn't. You are probably in the majority. On July 19th WNBA teams, the New York Liberty and the Indiana Fever played the first professional basketball game outdoors at the Author Ashe Stadium. The usual home of the U.S. Tennis Open. The sad thing was that this game was televised on NBATV which isn't a channel that everyone has.

When it comes to the WNBA most of the time the best coverage you can get on their events is on their website. Even the historic events such as this aren't covered. ESPN.com doesn't even mention it on its home pages and its only been a day later. If the NBA did something like this then I am sure it would be on the home page for at least two or three days accompanied by columns that support it.

The only thing that this event received in terms of coverage highlights provided by NBA.com and ESPN and a recap of what happened.


What this says to me is that if the WNBA can't draw in fans and coverage by being the first, even before the men, to have a professional basketball game outdoors, then I don't see the WNBA lasting very long. When you look at WNBA games it is clear that they don't have as many fans and when you look at shows like ESPN you don't see them get as much coverage than the NBA does. This is evident when you look at ESPN's WNBA page and see that they only list one woman as a blogger and contributer.

In my opinion even though the WNBA has tried to make strides to make their game more appealing though commercials and bringing in new and exciting talent there is something still missing that prevents the WNBA from recieving the media coverage and popularity it needs to survive. Even if they make history.