Thursday, January 9, 1997
OPINION:
Women’s pro basketball is merely an athletic apparel tacticIn
recent weeks the inaugural season of the women’s professional
American Basketball League reached the halfway mark, and the
question now is: Does anybody really care?
The league’s organizers think they do. ABL officials are
claiming victory after attendance for the first half of the season
surpassed their goal of 3,000 per game (the league was averaging a
few hundred over that at the time of the all-star game a few weeks
ago).
To put that number in perspective, UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion seats
just under 12,800. So, imagine Pauley at about one-quarter capacity
and you have the average ABL game.
That’s a victory?
If 3,000-plus showed up to a UCLA game, this newspaper would
overflow with letters whining about lack of fan support and the
absence of school spirit. And that’s for a college team, in the
nation’s second-largest media market (where Lord knows there are
plenty of other things to do), which plays about half of its games
on the same night as "Friends," "Seinfeld" and "ER."
By contrast, many of the ABL teams are located in such social
hot-spots as Hartford-Springfield, San Jose and Richmond. In other
words, the league can’t even draw large crowds in cities where
there are few, if any, entertainment alternatives.
And who can blame fans for staying away? I mean, what exactly is
the draw of a women’s league supposed to be anyway?
The lack of commercial success by the World League of American
Football and the Continental Basketball Association shows that fans
are simply not interested in watching a familiar game played by
athletes who are not up to the level they are used to.
And there is little argument that in the vast majority of
sports, woman athletes are not equal to their male counterparts.
Even female athletes admit as much. That’s why men and women are
almost always judged and rewarded separately. For example, the
first woman to finish the eight-mile San Francisco Bay to Breakers
run receives the same prize as her male peer (a new BMW and cash)
even though she often finishes 50th or so overall (with men Nos. 4
through 49 getting nothing but a smile and a T-shirt). And female
Olympians still receive medals, even though the winning time would
often not even qualify them for the men’s competition in the same
event.
It’s no different in basketball. As good as the women in the ABL
are, they are not in the same league (pardon the pun) as Jordan,
Shaq and Kemp. So, why would people be drawn to the women’s leagues
when they show little interest in the CBA or the World League? Just
because they’re women? Hardly.
Citing improved TV ratings for college games, the media has been
telling us for the last two years that interest in women’s
basketball is up. But they fail to mention two important things:
Women’s ratings still pale in comparison to those of men’s games
and that the major reason for the increase is simply when the games
are broadcast. With the occasional middle-of-the-night replay of
women’s college games being replaced by live weekend broadcasts,
ratings couldn’t help but go up.
But that doesn’t prove any increase in the public’s interest.
All it means is that those people who were interested in women’s
hoops weren’t interested enough to tune into ESPN2 at 3 a.m. to
watch it.
At best, the whole "increase" in the public’s interest was an
example of faulty and circular logic; at worst it was all just a
part of an attempt by athletic apparel companies to create a new
market. Sports Illustrated put Rebecca Lobo and her NCAA-champion
University of Connecticut teammates on the cover of one of their
issues in response, it claimed, to the public’s interest. Then,
proponents of women’s basketball turned around and cited the cover
as evidence of the public’s interest.
Nice try, but no.
A darker interpretation for the creation of the ABL and its
summer counterpart, the Women’s NBA, involves the giants of the
athletic apparel industry. Do you think it’s just a coincidence
that Nike started a major TV and print campaign targeted at women
and girls as the two leagues were being organized?
Nike and its competitors (Reebok, Fila, etc.) realize that there
is a major block of the U.S. population (over 50 percent) that has
yet to go nuts for their products the way those of us of the male
persuasion have. The reason: There is nothing drawing women to
tennis shoes enough to dish out $120 for a pair of high-tops. For
men and boys, sneakers are a fashion statement, a status symbol. By
owning the newest Air Jordans, a young man is somehow affiliated
with MJ in his mind and in those of his counterparts, and elevated
by the association.
But, there has not been anything comparable among women. So Nike
and company simply decided to create something.
Enter the ABL and the WNBA and the "increased" interest in
women’s basketball.
If you were to look at the initial sponsors of the two leagues,
you would doubtless find these apparel companies among the major
contributors.
So, I guess there is someone who really does care about women’s
basketball, and his name is Phil Knight, CEO and founder of
Nike.
Rob Kariakin’s column appears every Thursday. Responses can be
sent to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.
Rob Kariakin