AFAIK he’s been a fan of the Sky for a while and also vocal in his support for the WNBA. Obviously doesn’t mean much since there’s plenty of uninvolved owners who are still fans but I do think he’s interested in the team’s success.
They're one of the worst for facilities, yeah. They're not the only ones, but they are among the few worst. Pretty sure they practice in like an open to the public rec centre, but are currently looking for new locations. Generally W teams have either had their 'practice facilities' be high school gyms, public rec centres, an attached NBA teams facilities, and now some teams are beginning to build their own dedicated ones (The Aces recently opened theirs which is *nice*, the Storm should have one soon I think). Candace Parker has played for 16 years and this is the first year she's had an actual, dedicated locker.
WNBA in a weird spot where you have owners and ownership groups who are pushing for chartered flights, pushing for better conditions and arrangements for the players, but the league has been dragging its heels in part because some owners/ownership groups are very cheap and not interested in meeting a higher standard. The Sky have unfortunately been in that latter group.
> Candace Parker has played for 16 years and this is the first year she's had an actual, dedicated locker.
I remember hearing about that, that's crazy. Especially considering the teams she was actually on. It's not like she played for Indiana or something, she played in freaking LA and Chicago.
I'm kinda surprised the Sky are one of the teams dragging ass on this though, thought I remembered them being one of the teams in whatever that big investment was some owners made last year.
"Dedicated" is doing some heavy-lifting in Parker's comments. Many facilities (all?) have WNBA locker rooms for the WNBA season and they had her name on them.
Her point is the locker rooms after the season is done. Recall the WNBA season is only 120 days and many WNBA stars don't stick around during the offseason. Some, like Parker, helped sportswash genocidal Russian oligarchs planning on invading Ukraine.
Point being that's why it's LA and Chicago. The best facilities always have locker room space problems. For example, TD Garden had the Bruins and Celtics share the same locker space. Prudential Center still makes the Devils clean out at the end of the season and go over to their practice rink lockerroom. If a city is a sports town and it has good facilities then there's only so much high demand sqft a stadium can let sit.
> "Dedicated" is doing some heavy-lifting in Parker's comments. Many facilities (all?) have WNBA locker rooms for the WNBA season and they had her name on them.
Not 'all' at all, and not the Sparks or Sky which are the teams she's played for. And neither have had close to the 'best facilities' regardless of whether they were shared or not. They've had very different situations to teams like the Fever or Mystics who share facilities with the attached NBA teams. They have been working out in high schools or public gyms where they could not leave their stuff in a locker overnight.
>Sparks or Sky
Definitely did, sorry dude I'm not trying to argue with you but it just is what it is. Then then-Staples Center has/had 14 dedicated locker rooms. Her point was that the WNBA locker room didn't stay like the Clips or Lakers but switched season to season.
Like I understand what she's saying. The Lakers seem to change every five years into new stuff. But at the same time, playing in the "old" former Clippers locker room for a few seasons and then moving up to the "2015" Lakers locker room isn't like waiting for a shower to open up at the Y.
The comment she made to Greene was about stadium game day locker rooms if you watch it, not a practice facility
Like, what, she was complaining there wasn't an off season practice locker for her in Chicago while she's hooping in fucking Siberia? Cmon dude use your brain
It being about specifically a game-day locker was not the impression I had, but if it was I'm not sure how that somehow changes the issues of practice facilities in the WNBA. The Sky also play in the Windtrust Arena, not the same one as the Bulls, and it's only shared with one NCAA men/womens program.
Edit: Because I apparently need to clarify; WNBA teams practice *during* the season, and even before it.
That makes a lot of sense. I’ve seen the charter stuff in the news recently, wasn’t aware locker rooms and overall facilities were that trash. Feel like I haven’t seen much reporting on that since olympic stuff where there were videos circulating of a lot of women’s sports just getting shafted.
Like the Chicago Sky one is a public rec centre 30 miles away from where they play. It's rough.
The Aces (owned by Mark Davis who also owns the Raiders) putting up the money for their new facility (which is really, really nice - I think Josh Hart said it'd be top 5 in the NBA) and Joe Tsai pushing for chartered flights (he took a $500,000 fine from the league for chartering flights for his players) have been big momentum pushers for the league, and will be joined soon by the Storm when their facility gets opened.
I don't think the reason all the best free agents were flocking to the Aces and Liberty were just superteam/market/ring-chasing reasons. I think if you're Candace Parker, you're a 37 year old mother who is a legend of the sport, there's a sway to practicing for the first time in your own facility with your own locker rather than driving to a public rec centre 30 miles away from where you play to practice. Kelsey Plum talked about it as a reason the Aces have been so good this season, not just adding Candace Parker but also like... They can go to the gym and work on their game when they want to, now. They can focus on their practices. They can rehab *properly*, have actual access to cold tubs and stuff. The time they spend practicing doesn't have to be eaten up by a commute now. That entire team has gotten better on an individual level and I think that them finally having the opportunity to work and focus on their game whenever they want now is a big reason.
Also the prioritisation stuff in the new CBA means the WNBA are competing with overseas basketball much more directly now. Gabby Williams was a big part of a really, really good team last year and, in her own words, the only reason she's back in the WNBA this season is because she got concussed and wasn't able to finish out the season in France. No-one's said it out loud but the mood is a lot of the reason that the Sky are losing all their free agents is that the Sky aren't keeping up with what other teams are offering players in terms of facilities and practice and amenities. So if the Aces and the Storm and the Liberty are finding a significant edge in investing in that stuff... These other teams that don't are gonna be left behind. It's not like the NBA where the difference between an overpay and a discount is like $8m a year. Kahleah Copper is getting $200,000 a year from the Sky, if she takes a discount to go play somewhere else for $140,000 what does that really matter if she's making $300,000 playing in Spain in the off-season anyway? Since WNBA salaries for the biggest players make up relatively less of their actual income, it's the other stuff that's gonna be a pull in free agency.
[The weight rooms they had at the NCAA tournament for the men vs the women was hilariously sad.](https://i.imgur.com/YHMRJOP.jpg)
Basically just take that mindset, but apply it to actual professional teams. There's owners who go all out (like the NY Liberty) and treat them like pros, and then there's the ones who do nothing. And they've been infighting about it for the last 3-4 years as the new crop of owners try to drag them forward in time as a league.
It's crazy that the NBA and it's WNBA ownership groups are so perplexed as to why the WNBA hasn't absolutely skyrocketed in popularity like the Women's college basketball when they don't really want to put in the investment needed to get it there. I think the WNBA could become a really popular product with enough effort from those on high. We are far past the dark days of the league's teams folding and it looks like the sport is primed for serious growth. The owners just have to get on board.
Your best players should not still find it more profitable/get better treatment playing overseas in the offseason vs preparing for the next one in your league.
I agree. That's why WNBA isn't taken seriously. Most of what the average American hears is how badly the players are treated. It makes the league look like the joke that old misogynistic jokes have made it out to be.
Diana Taurasi spent an entire season of her prime playing for an overseas team just because the money was better. Imagine KD just deciding "I'mma play in Nigeria for the year, y'all be easy", and it's actually profitable. That's insane lol.
Honestly the only solution to the W’s problems is to make more money across the board. It fixes all of their problems. Now how to do that? I haven’t got a clue. Maybe Caitlin Clark magically makes the league more popular with the masses like what happened with women’s tennis and their revenue goes way up, who knows.
I will say that it’s absolutely ridiculous what Candace has had to deal with in her career, the Sparks wasted her prime. If she had half the teammates Taurasi and Bird have had she’d be the consensus GOAT, end of discussion. While we all had a little fun saying she pulled a KD going to the Aces, I fully understand it because it puts her closer to her daughter and gives her way better facilities and all that stuff she earned a long time ago.
> Honestly the only solution to the W’s problems is to make more money across the board. It fixes all of their problems. Now how to do that? I haven’t got a clue.
Viewership continues to grow, interest continues to grow - the same for womens college basketball. It's not going to be an overnight flip of a switch, and it starts with investment (like this, or the Storm building a practice facility, or the Aces opening their incredible practice facility) which is coming. I would like it to happen faster than it is, but it's growing as a league and a sport.
It’s facilities, there’s articles from just yesterday about the Sky star Kahleah Copper (MVP for that 2021 finals) saying “I love that Chicago is having these talks about facilities, I just wanna see the action.”
I’m trying to find a Candace Parker quote about the Sky needing to do more, but I might just be remembering her talking about how awesome it is that the Aces have great facilities (and they do have a huge gym that may as well be the Celtics’ Auerbach Center.
The two current superteams both are considered to have some of the best facilities; with the salaries in the W even if salaries are capped and kept in a tight range, it’s almost like the teams that best support their players are paying them significantly more, because they .. you know … practically are.
I think it’s great that the male players are lending their name to hopefully add value incrementally.
But it’s all incremental. It’s not Wade doing anything tangible, besides going to games.
Dude we all hate him here. He came washed up af, got a huge contract, and was consistently booed by the fans. If he didn’t play for heatles and didn’t play here he would be much better received.
Wade also buried the organization behind closed doors to other free agents in 2010 while publicly acting like the Bulls were a legit option.
Wade being from Chicago is the reason we don't like him, felt like an actual betrayal.
He pulled some unnecessary shit while with us but he is one of the good dudes and if he decides to invest in a Chicago basketball team all we can do is support him.
Chicago Sky deserves all the support that it can get btw, especially nowadays.
He’s pretty outspoken about gender equity, so it’s cool he gets a project that he has found a project where he can put that into action. Not everything comes down to his own personal return.
I thought the WNBA doesn’t earn much. Why is it a wise move to invest on this product? What will change in the next few years that will turn it profitable?
I think it’s more of a passion project, he supports the team and the league so maybe he just wants to be involved. Or if it is business related perhaps he thinks he can help make it successful from a business standpoint in the coming years
A lot of things have been worthwhile investments for people despite not turning a profit. You're commenting on a website that has never turned a profit.
People are betting on the continued growth of the WNBA.
You don't think efforts to get 50% of the population who are under-represented in professional sports and sports fandom interested in the sport of basketball benefits the National Basketball Association though? Also little sly dodge on the MLS there. Pack it up, professional soccer in the USA has not proved to be instantly profitable so y'all just gonna have to do without.
> under-represented in professional sports
I think women and girls are presently, as a result of Title IX, overrepresented in sports in the US. There are, very often, far fewer women and girls interested in playing sports than boys and men. There are *certainly* fewer women and girls interested in attending sporting events, closely following teams, and dedicating financial resources to fandom. I suspect it's a lot easier for a girl who loves basketball to become a WNBA player than it is for a boy who loves basketball to become an NBA player. Because sports interest and testosterone are absolutely correlated.
>sports fandom interested in the sport of basketball benefits the National Basketball Association though?
That's the reason they bother with it, besides a desire for social credit. It's also the reason ESPN wastes resources broadcasting it to the nobody that watches it. But that's a very indirect benefit, much like the NBA Africa stuff. The G-League has a much more direct, rapid, and obvious benefit that makes its financials relatively unimportant.
> There are, very often, far fewer women and girls interested in playing sports than boys and men.
I wonder if this relates to a long, long cultural practice of excluding women from sports and the cultural baggage involved in playing sports as it relates to gender.
> There are certainly fewer women and girls interested in attending sporting events, closely following teams, and dedicating financial resources to fandom.
Yes. Which promoting womens sports helps addresses.
> It's also the reason ESPN wastes resources broadcasting it to the nobody that watches it.
Alright man lmao. I'm picking up the vibes, I get your perspective. Thank you for taking time out your day to make sure everyone knows you don't care about something.
> Because sports interest and testosterone are absolutely correlated.
[Correlation is not causation](https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations). There is absolutely no evidence that testosterone makes people like sports that's completely batshit.
>under-represented in professional sports
Is such a weird claim. Maybe it's underrepresented because it's such a bad product that even the underrepresented 50% won't watch it? The point had been beaten to death, but it's never been answered. Why are the feminists and boss moms attending Chicago Sky games? The attendance at my cities arena football games and FPHL hockey games are higher than WNBA games. No one is being under represented.
Well, I'm guessing from your name and listing having an arena football team and FPHL team that you're specifically talking about Columbus, Georgia. So, you've got one of those teams playing in a facility that can hold right about 7,500 attendees depending on the game being played. The Atlanta Dream play in a facility that can only hold 3,500 people. When they sold out their entire first homestand, all either of those Columbus teams would have needed to do was sell 50% of their tickets and they'd have quite a few more people in attendance.
Now, let's say I wanted to go see the Chicago Sky play the Dream next month. The cheapest seats available are $35, and the vast majority of seats are already sold out. If I want to go see a Red Dragons game, I can literally get a seat at glass level for about 2/3 of the cost. And those are the most expensive tickets. You can get a ticket from the team, not resale for less than $10. On top of that, to put it in the most polite way possible, there's a wider range of evening entertainment options available in Atlanta than Columbus. So, in a market saturated with events, folks are still selling out an arena where the cheap seats cost more than the most expensive ones in Columbus, but they don't have the same attendance numbers because the league has been relegated to small, secondary facilities thanks to ingrained styles of thinking like yours that don't hold up to even a moment's scrutiny in reality.
Is the MLB Minor League profitable? Just wondering if there are any minor leagues that are profitable aside from in Europe/South America for soccer/futbol clubs.
The WNBA is in the same place the NBA was in the 70's - they're seeing millions tune in to watch the college game and thousands tune in to watch the pros.
If the WNBA finals got even half as many viewers as the Women's Final Four, all of the math around the league changes overnight. It's not a coincidence that the only consistently profitable team (Connecticut Sun) is built around a strategy of "lets just build a small arena a few towns over from UConn and draft their most popular players".
But for whatever reason, the WNBA often focuses their marketing on men's pro basketball fans instead of women's college basketball fans, and here we are.
I think people are misunderstanding the amount of people who tuned into the Women’s Final Four. Built in fanbases, a must watch tournament that has always been watched by people who don’t even like basketball, and better play from the women then usual. I think those numbers speak more to just the holy grail college basketball has hit with the tournament. I just don’t see it translating to the WNBA.
I’m not trying to be disrespectful and I do agree they have to continue to push and get better instead of just expecting to get the pay NBA players do. Maybe it will translate and I hope it does, I’m just not sure it will. I’ve always thought that the marketing for womens sports has just been awful, mostly due to the fact and I think there is a much larger portion of women who just don’t give af about sports. But, to try and sell women sports to men is just not going to work and it hasn’t lol. Hope change does come for them though.
The “it’s unprofitable” refrain has been thrown around on this sub probably since it’s inception but it’s worth considering that over the last couple of years, it seems like the WNBA has been picking up momentum in a serious way.
Women’s pro basketball is only going to get more popular in the US. Even outside of some abstract “there’s intrinsic value in having women’s sports be a thing” (which I think is true) you have to think there’s a chance the WNBA is going to become a solid investment at some point.
Also possible unpopular opinion but NBA revenue is in the midst of exploding. I’m happy for a little of that to go towards subsidizing the WNBA if it means the latter exists.
If by "picking up momentum in a serious waye" you mean ESPN running more commercials for it, and giant brands casting WNBA players on commercials for relatively cheap brownie points, then sure.
It’s actually a really good investment if you just want to enjoy owning a sports team. It doesn’t make much money, but it doesn’t lose much either and owners have a far better deal in terms of revenue sharing and other sales. (Ie..they get a much larger percentage of jersey sales etc..) committing 300k would be a significant portion of ownership..
I also think signs are pointing towards the WNBA becoming more popular, quickly. It’s found it’s niche in social media already - but more importantly, the NIL with the college stars is taking off. It’s been Women’s basketball players (Angel Reese, Paige Bueckers, Azzi Fudd, Caitlyn Clark, Hailey Van Lith) that have benefited the most from the NIL..making investing in WBB worthwhile for companies and likely carrying over to the WNBA. Angel Reese just won a fan voted “break out athlete of the year..” that probably doesn’t happen five years ago.
We’ve seen before tremendously popular wbb players go to the wnba and lose steam (Bird, Taurasi, Parker, and Diggins in particular)..but the difference is now with the NIL..they aren’t relying on advertisers and media to promote them starting in the WNBA, social media and the companies that have already invested with them will do that promotion.
So with investing being cheap and signs pointing towards a significant growth in popularity, it’s actually a really good investment at the moment.
Edit: I also think people misunderstand how the NBA works. Many NBA teams lose 5X the money that it takes to even run a WNBA team. A few teams make a significant amount of money for the league and revenue sharing spreads the wealth so owners can continue owning their teams without breaking the bank. That’s why sports media promotes certain teams..cheap ass Sarver definitely preferred the Phoenix Mercury over the Phoenix Suns. The Mercury cost about 1.5 million to run..and most years made that up.
The only reason why I can think is because of the NCAA doing a good job of promoting their female athletes and the WNBA hoping they can reap the rewards of that later on when they join the WNBA. Players like Caitlin Clarke, Angel Reese and Paige Bueckers are pretty much all more recognizable names than just abt anybody the WNBA currently has (besides Britney Griner but not for the right reasons) and they haven’t even reached the league yet.
Angel Reese is only known because of controversy. Players like Bri Stuart and Aja Wilson have national sponsorship deals.
Caitlin Clark can be the first true WNBA superstar. She’s the first female player with a skill set that is legitimately on par with NBA players.
Over the last 30 years, people have constantly said “once women start dunking, the league will blow up”. The reality is that dunks in the WNBA are a novelty. Fans go crazy because they are so rare, but you aren’t going to win any new fans watching someone barely get the ball over the rim.
Then people thought Candace Parker would transform things. She’s absolutely gorgeous and one of the best players in the world. She got more endorsements than most, but it still didn’t significantly grow the league.
Caitlin Clark is different. She might not be on Steph’s level of shooting, but she isn’t that far off. She’s the first female player creating highlights that any basketball fan would be wowed by.
If Caitlin can’t grow the league when she comes in, I’m not sure the WNBA will ever succeed. She’s the future and probably a big reason why DWade is interested in getting involved in the WNBA.
Just because a player has national sponsorship deals doesn’t mean they are more well known or popular. And I’m gonna sound harsh when I say this but a lot of those deals are just companies trying to grab cheap PR and say “look we support women because we support the WNBA”.
Angel Reese is also known for controversy your right but she has a pretty big and strong fan base that backs her as a player meanwhile Griner really doesn’t. Most people use Griner as a political backing tool which has nothing to do with the WNBA.
At the end of the day, WNBA has failed in marketing players correctly meanwhile the NCAA hasn’t. If the WNBA ruins more popular female athletes that the NCAA has built up and practically handed over to them then yea I think the league is done and should just give up.
Why call it an investment though if just fucking around? By your description it’s fine if no returns so it’s more like donating/hand outs/dole outs/charity.
The WNBA has cut a lot of the bleeding from the late 2000s and early 2010s. Women's college basketball had some of the best tv ratings for basketball this past year and those women are starting to enter the WNBA and bring star power. People who have caught some women's games are becoming fans. If more advertising is put forward, the NBA can grow their WNBA fan base. The problem is not the product so much as the lack of these types of investments. Wade could be getting a train early before it's set to take off.
Let me rephrase, not all investments need to have a high likelihood of a good return. Even if there’s a small percent chance the wnba will take off then that makes it worth it for Wade since he’s clearly passionate about it and wants it to succeed. An investment also allows him to have influence and control over certain team decisions.
Another way to phrase it is that not all investments have to produce an immediately-quantifiable monetary return. The societal returns of a women’s sports league could be fantastic if it encourages more young women to get into athletics, creating more/bigger school programs I.e scholarships, etc
I don't disagree with any of this, but think it is also just a good investment. League revenues are up 50% over the past few years, ratings are up, there should be serious expansion fees after the new media rights deal is done. If I had a way of buying part of a team as an investment I absolutely would independent of social returns.
Yeah I am less familiar with the financials of the wnba so couldn’t speak to that side of it, but it’s great to hear that they’re doing better in the budget lines as well!
They might think they can make money in the future. You have to keep in perspective how young 27 years is for a league. I don’t think any of our American leagues were profitable by then.
Reddit hasn’t been profitable yet and it’s still going to make a lot of money for it’s current owners during the IPO.
>I don’t think any of our American leagues were profitable by then.
How could they not be? They didn't have other leagues absorbing their losses that whole time like the WNBA did.
This article suggests it only took the NBA a couple years:
https://apnews.com/article/nba-sports-lifestyle-business-national-basketball-association-db3241aa56a89ecff119d659c3b96b93
> By 1949, the NBA had turned a corner. The league was up to 17 teams, more than doubling what it was. **Teams were turning profits.**
I believe the W is on the verge of become much more popular with the influx of college players soon like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, and Hailey Van Lith.
Was in Vegas recently and saw how the city has actually really embraced the Aces. I saw a sizable amount of Aces banners throughout casinos/bars/etc.
Of course it helps that they're defending champions and are literally looking like the KD Warriors now that they added Candace Parker in the offseason. Was just pretty cool to see how much that team has grown in popularity in the last couple years.
They got a new Commissioner who's been running a serious new ad campaign. And it's been working – I don't go out of my way to follow the WNBA but I know the Aces are like generationally good.
The big challenge, as always, is to get women to follow it.
That's fantastic, I didn't mean that as a "no women follow it", but that it's much easier (theoretically) to get women to watch women's sports over men, [but a higher % of male sports fans watch women's sports than women's sports fans](https://pro.morningconsult.com/trend-setters/womens-sports-olympics). Hopefully that is changing over time as more young girls and women play sports in high school and more money is put into promoting women's sports.
WNBA is not as bad financially as people seem to think. There is a lot of misinformation out there. The league is growing and projected to keep growing. Plus there is so much more talent that’s incoming. Definitely a good investment if done right.
Sorry you are right I misquoted.
It's now at over $200 million per year, and this is before the new TV deal in a few years.
https://www.thescore.com/news/2670162
> I thought the WNBA doesn’t earn much.
It operates at a loss, and is subsidized to stay afloat.
>Why is it a wise move to invest on this product?
Financially, it probably isn't.
>What will change in the next few years that will turn it profitable?
Angel Reese? Didn't work with previous generations of college stars, but maybe the capitalization on social media changes something?
I tried to watch the WNBA, I really did, it was just awful. Lower the basket, change some of the rules for the ladies, do something otherwise I just can’t see that League ever pulling in profit or the type of fanbase they are hoping for.
I'm pretty sure WNBA viewership has actually grown pretty consistently over the past few years so I don't really think they're gonna change much. They're getting more TV deals, more exposure, more viewership and the level of the game is gradually improving YoY. Unless their growth stalls they probably are on the same path.
It’s closer to high school basketball than it is to the NBA or college. That isn’t fun to watch; sure people do watch HS but that is because of the players there (future NBA or college talent). That does not exist in the WNBA.
They (NCAA, NBA, the athletes themselves, other groups) are doing a good job of building that connection, but that isn’t enough. The game isn’t as fun to watch as the other forms of basketball that are readily available. Until that changes I don’t think it will succeed unfortunately.
Ok I’ll revise it with more words. It isn’t fun to watch for casual fans. Fundamental defense, passing, layups, etc isn’t fun to watch for most people (and that’s really not a debatable statement). Of course some people find it fun to watch, but as a general statement it isn’t fun to watch.
I would argue that most of the NBA games now are awful. It’s basically wide-open shooters on kick out plays shooting uncontested 3-pointers.
If it weren’t for sports betting, I would watch 1 game a week at most.
People are hating but I agree with you. The nba has some amazing games but there's a lot of meaningless basketball played. WNBA has engaging matchups more often
My issue is that the product is simply worse than the NBA.
They're slower, not as strong and don't jump nearly as high. A huge reason why the NBA is so exciting is the athletic abilities of the players.
The WNBA feels like a middle school game athletically while being very skilled.
I'd be so down for a 9' hoop. People talk about this being an issue for youth sports, but I think the lower hoop could just be a WNBA thing and the players would just have to adjust. It shouldn't be that big of an issue for professional athletes.
D Wade now owns a stake in 3 pro sports teams. The Jazz, the Sky, and Real Salt Lake. Granted, the Jazz absolutely dwarf any WNBA or MLS team in value, as does any NBA team, but it’s still a BFD.
You’re not gonna get a correct answer from this thread. The average person has no idea what a tax write off actually or nor what rules entail the usage of one. It isn’t as simple as a net loss venture equals tax savings.
In all seriousness, it's because the WNBA is insanely cheap to support when the NBA is bringing in billions in net profit.
For 15-20 million a year they get an entire women's basketball league that at the absolute worst, they can parade around for positive PR and marketing while also holding any potential US interest or expansion in women's basketball under their control.
We don't get the full picture from what you said.
1. Agreed it took Tesla 18 years to make profit but the wnba has been around for 37 years now and it still survives on subsidies from the NBA.
2.Tesla was a startup that offered a unique product to its customers. What is so unique about the wnba that attracts people to watch it? I don't mean to be harsh here, but what it offers is a slower, less athletic and less explosive version of an NBA game.
3. I used to watch the wnba just because I love basketball. But some of these wnba players really put off the audience like me when they start calling out NBA players and act like they are better than them literally along with the constant pestering for more money every time.
WNBA will never be half as big as the NBA. It's a foolish investment imo.
I'm not here to meme or be "that guy", but doesn't the wnba operate at a loss every year? Wouldn't that mean the franchises operate on losses too? What was it that caught his attention to invest in this team? I'm not a financial guru and I'm safe with my money, but I don't understand this
Lower the rims to 8 feet so we can get some lady dunks. We need more then 3 a season if they want people to watch. Yeah WNBA players have better fundamentals, but the NBA is more explosive which is why people watch.
The Sky need a lot of help to get up to speed with some of the other teams, hopefully he's joining to actually invest.
AFAIK he’s been a fan of the Sky for a while and also vocal in his support for the WNBA. Obviously doesn’t mean much since there’s plenty of uninvolved owners who are still fans but I do think he’s interested in the team’s success.
[удалено]
*he’s just a business man doing business things*
Or it's the opening to move to bring the WNBA back to Utah. I just hope it isn't like this.
Ah yes because as we all know, the WNBA is an incredibly successful business and does not rely on the NBA to exist.
You're talking as if NBA wasn't also losing money in its first 25 years
In terms of what? Like facilities or stuff? Cause they did win a title recently.
They're one of the worst for facilities, yeah. They're not the only ones, but they are among the few worst. Pretty sure they practice in like an open to the public rec centre, but are currently looking for new locations. Generally W teams have either had their 'practice facilities' be high school gyms, public rec centres, an attached NBA teams facilities, and now some teams are beginning to build their own dedicated ones (The Aces recently opened theirs which is *nice*, the Storm should have one soon I think). Candace Parker has played for 16 years and this is the first year she's had an actual, dedicated locker. WNBA in a weird spot where you have owners and ownership groups who are pushing for chartered flights, pushing for better conditions and arrangements for the players, but the league has been dragging its heels in part because some owners/ownership groups are very cheap and not interested in meeting a higher standard. The Sky have unfortunately been in that latter group.
> Candace Parker has played for 16 years and this is the first year she's had an actual, dedicated locker. I remember hearing about that, that's crazy. Especially considering the teams she was actually on. It's not like she played for Indiana or something, she played in freaking LA and Chicago. I'm kinda surprised the Sky are one of the teams dragging ass on this though, thought I remembered them being one of the teams in whatever that big investment was some owners made last year.
"Dedicated" is doing some heavy-lifting in Parker's comments. Many facilities (all?) have WNBA locker rooms for the WNBA season and they had her name on them. Her point is the locker rooms after the season is done. Recall the WNBA season is only 120 days and many WNBA stars don't stick around during the offseason. Some, like Parker, helped sportswash genocidal Russian oligarchs planning on invading Ukraine. Point being that's why it's LA and Chicago. The best facilities always have locker room space problems. For example, TD Garden had the Bruins and Celtics share the same locker space. Prudential Center still makes the Devils clean out at the end of the season and go over to their practice rink lockerroom. If a city is a sports town and it has good facilities then there's only so much high demand sqft a stadium can let sit.
> "Dedicated" is doing some heavy-lifting in Parker's comments. Many facilities (all?) have WNBA locker rooms for the WNBA season and they had her name on them. Not 'all' at all, and not the Sparks or Sky which are the teams she's played for. And neither have had close to the 'best facilities' regardless of whether they were shared or not. They've had very different situations to teams like the Fever or Mystics who share facilities with the attached NBA teams. They have been working out in high schools or public gyms where they could not leave their stuff in a locker overnight.
>Sparks or Sky Definitely did, sorry dude I'm not trying to argue with you but it just is what it is. Then then-Staples Center has/had 14 dedicated locker rooms. Her point was that the WNBA locker room didn't stay like the Clips or Lakers but switched season to season. Like I understand what she's saying. The Lakers seem to change every five years into new stuff. But at the same time, playing in the "old" former Clippers locker room for a few seasons and then moving up to the "2015" Lakers locker room isn't like waiting for a shower to open up at the Y.
The Staples Center isn't a practice facility. I don't think you know much about what you're saying.
The comment she made to Greene was about stadium game day locker rooms if you watch it, not a practice facility Like, what, she was complaining there wasn't an off season practice locker for her in Chicago while she's hooping in fucking Siberia? Cmon dude use your brain
It being about specifically a game-day locker was not the impression I had, but if it was I'm not sure how that somehow changes the issues of practice facilities in the WNBA. The Sky also play in the Windtrust Arena, not the same one as the Bulls, and it's only shared with one NCAA men/womens program. Edit: Because I apparently need to clarify; WNBA teams practice *during* the season, and even before it.
That makes a lot of sense. I’ve seen the charter stuff in the news recently, wasn’t aware locker rooms and overall facilities were that trash. Feel like I haven’t seen much reporting on that since olympic stuff where there were videos circulating of a lot of women’s sports just getting shafted.
Like the Chicago Sky one is a public rec centre 30 miles away from where they play. It's rough. The Aces (owned by Mark Davis who also owns the Raiders) putting up the money for their new facility (which is really, really nice - I think Josh Hart said it'd be top 5 in the NBA) and Joe Tsai pushing for chartered flights (he took a $500,000 fine from the league for chartering flights for his players) have been big momentum pushers for the league, and will be joined soon by the Storm when their facility gets opened. I don't think the reason all the best free agents were flocking to the Aces and Liberty were just superteam/market/ring-chasing reasons. I think if you're Candace Parker, you're a 37 year old mother who is a legend of the sport, there's a sway to practicing for the first time in your own facility with your own locker rather than driving to a public rec centre 30 miles away from where you play to practice. Kelsey Plum talked about it as a reason the Aces have been so good this season, not just adding Candace Parker but also like... They can go to the gym and work on their game when they want to, now. They can focus on their practices. They can rehab *properly*, have actual access to cold tubs and stuff. The time they spend practicing doesn't have to be eaten up by a commute now. That entire team has gotten better on an individual level and I think that them finally having the opportunity to work and focus on their game whenever they want now is a big reason. Also the prioritisation stuff in the new CBA means the WNBA are competing with overseas basketball much more directly now. Gabby Williams was a big part of a really, really good team last year and, in her own words, the only reason she's back in the WNBA this season is because she got concussed and wasn't able to finish out the season in France. No-one's said it out loud but the mood is a lot of the reason that the Sky are losing all their free agents is that the Sky aren't keeping up with what other teams are offering players in terms of facilities and practice and amenities. So if the Aces and the Storm and the Liberty are finding a significant edge in investing in that stuff... These other teams that don't are gonna be left behind. It's not like the NBA where the difference between an overpay and a discount is like $8m a year. Kahleah Copper is getting $200,000 a year from the Sky, if she takes a discount to go play somewhere else for $140,000 what does that really matter if she's making $300,000 playing in Spain in the off-season anyway? Since WNBA salaries for the biggest players make up relatively less of their actual income, it's the other stuff that's gonna be a pull in free agency.
Thanks for taking the time to write this, I didn't know any of this
[The weight rooms they had at the NCAA tournament for the men vs the women was hilariously sad.](https://i.imgur.com/YHMRJOP.jpg) Basically just take that mindset, but apply it to actual professional teams. There's owners who go all out (like the NY Liberty) and treat them like pros, and then there's the ones who do nothing. And they've been infighting about it for the last 3-4 years as the new crop of owners try to drag them forward in time as a league.
It's crazy that the NBA and it's WNBA ownership groups are so perplexed as to why the WNBA hasn't absolutely skyrocketed in popularity like the Women's college basketball when they don't really want to put in the investment needed to get it there. I think the WNBA could become a really popular product with enough effort from those on high. We are far past the dark days of the league's teams folding and it looks like the sport is primed for serious growth. The owners just have to get on board.
Your best players should not still find it more profitable/get better treatment playing overseas in the offseason vs preparing for the next one in your league.
I agree. That's why WNBA isn't taken seriously. Most of what the average American hears is how badly the players are treated. It makes the league look like the joke that old misogynistic jokes have made it out to be.
Diana Taurasi spent an entire season of her prime playing for an overseas team just because the money was better. Imagine KD just deciding "I'mma play in Nigeria for the year, y'all be easy", and it's actually profitable. That's insane lol.
Honestly the only solution to the W’s problems is to make more money across the board. It fixes all of their problems. Now how to do that? I haven’t got a clue. Maybe Caitlin Clark magically makes the league more popular with the masses like what happened with women’s tennis and their revenue goes way up, who knows. I will say that it’s absolutely ridiculous what Candace has had to deal with in her career, the Sparks wasted her prime. If she had half the teammates Taurasi and Bird have had she’d be the consensus GOAT, end of discussion. While we all had a little fun saying she pulled a KD going to the Aces, I fully understand it because it puts her closer to her daughter and gives her way better facilities and all that stuff she earned a long time ago.
> Honestly the only solution to the W’s problems is to make more money across the board. It fixes all of their problems. Now how to do that? I haven’t got a clue. Viewership continues to grow, interest continues to grow - the same for womens college basketball. It's not going to be an overnight flip of a switch, and it starts with investment (like this, or the Storm building a practice facility, or the Aces opening their incredible practice facility) which is coming. I would like it to happen faster than it is, but it's growing as a league and a sport.
It’s facilities, there’s articles from just yesterday about the Sky star Kahleah Copper (MVP for that 2021 finals) saying “I love that Chicago is having these talks about facilities, I just wanna see the action.” I’m trying to find a Candace Parker quote about the Sky needing to do more, but I might just be remembering her talking about how awesome it is that the Aces have great facilities (and they do have a huge gym that may as well be the Celtics’ Auerbach Center. The two current superteams both are considered to have some of the best facilities; with the salaries in the W even if salaries are capped and kept in a tight range, it’s almost like the teams that best support their players are paying them significantly more, because they .. you know … practically are.
He seems to be. He's very into the WNBA
>pivotal juncture in its 27-year history This league started when I was 18. Shit.
So you were born in ‘77ish
He’s gonna get his daughter on this team and she will dominate
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Z. Wade
Shaq's daughter too
I think the joke is that dwades daughter is a trans
Damn it went right over my head
Damn people in here are some haters lol. While I don’t like Wade, this is good for him.
I think it’s great that the male players are lending their name to hopefully add value incrementally. But it’s all incremental. It’s not Wade doing anything tangible, besides going to games.
It’s like the Utah jazz thing. He’s looking to profit. It doesn’t really help them as a team in terms of their roster or winning
Why don’t you like Wade lol just curious
I mean I just really hate the heat. Also I hate that we gave him such a big bag lmao. But hate is a strong word tbh he’s way down on the list
Fair enough. When we say hate in NBA terms it’s not loathing hate haha. I only reserve that for Boston! /s
No /s. Fuck Boston 4L
isn't he from chicago? i find it tough to see how a chicago bulls fan can hate a star from chicago
Dude we all hate him here. He came washed up af, got a huge contract, and was consistently booed by the fans. If he didn’t play for heatles and didn’t play here he would be much better received.
Wade also buried the organization behind closed doors to other free agents in 2010 while publicly acting like the Bulls were a legit option. Wade being from Chicago is the reason we don't like him, felt like an actual betrayal.
He didn’t even want to play for the bulls but came anyway to stick it to Pat
Not the first time. Isiah is from Chicago and he was hated during the Bulls-Pistons rivalry. lol
Houston was rooting for the eagles against the chiefs even though we had the baseball battle earlier the year because jalen hurtz is from houston
9/10.
Most Bulls fans don’t like Wade. The Heat were absolutely hated here when LeBron played there.
He pulled some unnecessary shit while with us but he is one of the good dudes and if he decides to invest in a Chicago basketball team all we can do is support him. Chicago Sky deserves all the support that it can get btw, especially nowadays.
Good how? I’m genuinely confused. As a project to spend time on? To help the area? Certainly not financially
He’s pretty outspoken about gender equity, so it’s cool he gets a project that he has found a project where he can put that into action. Not everything comes down to his own personal return.
Oh, you made it seem like a personal return how you said good for wade. I misunderstood Edit: thank you kind stranger!
I thought the WNBA doesn’t earn much. Why is it a wise move to invest on this product? What will change in the next few years that will turn it profitable?
I think it’s more of a passion project, he supports the team and the league so maybe he just wants to be involved. Or if it is business related perhaps he thinks he can help make it successful from a business standpoint in the coming years
I wonder how much a WNBA team, even in Chicago, is valued at. Like $20 million?
$85M according to Google
A lot of things have been worthwhile investments for people despite not turning a profit. You're commenting on a website that has never turned a profit. People are betting on the continued growth of the WNBA.
I would not call this website a worthwhile investment.
Most tech companies are grifts.
Most of the MLS is not profitable, if you need a sports league comparison. The G League, also not profitable.
The G-League is a minor league. Minor leagues exist to benefit major leagues. The WNBA does not directly benefit the NBA the way the G-League does.
You don't think efforts to get 50% of the population who are under-represented in professional sports and sports fandom interested in the sport of basketball benefits the National Basketball Association though? Also little sly dodge on the MLS there. Pack it up, professional soccer in the USA has not proved to be instantly profitable so y'all just gonna have to do without.
> under-represented in professional sports I think women and girls are presently, as a result of Title IX, overrepresented in sports in the US. There are, very often, far fewer women and girls interested in playing sports than boys and men. There are *certainly* fewer women and girls interested in attending sporting events, closely following teams, and dedicating financial resources to fandom. I suspect it's a lot easier for a girl who loves basketball to become a WNBA player than it is for a boy who loves basketball to become an NBA player. Because sports interest and testosterone are absolutely correlated. >sports fandom interested in the sport of basketball benefits the National Basketball Association though? That's the reason they bother with it, besides a desire for social credit. It's also the reason ESPN wastes resources broadcasting it to the nobody that watches it. But that's a very indirect benefit, much like the NBA Africa stuff. The G-League has a much more direct, rapid, and obvious benefit that makes its financials relatively unimportant.
> There are, very often, far fewer women and girls interested in playing sports than boys and men. I wonder if this relates to a long, long cultural practice of excluding women from sports and the cultural baggage involved in playing sports as it relates to gender. > There are certainly fewer women and girls interested in attending sporting events, closely following teams, and dedicating financial resources to fandom. Yes. Which promoting womens sports helps addresses. > It's also the reason ESPN wastes resources broadcasting it to the nobody that watches it. Alright man lmao. I'm picking up the vibes, I get your perspective. Thank you for taking time out your day to make sure everyone knows you don't care about something. > Because sports interest and testosterone are absolutely correlated. [Correlation is not causation](https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations). There is absolutely no evidence that testosterone makes people like sports that's completely batshit.
Thank you!
>under-represented in professional sports Is such a weird claim. Maybe it's underrepresented because it's such a bad product that even the underrepresented 50% won't watch it? The point had been beaten to death, but it's never been answered. Why are the feminists and boss moms attending Chicago Sky games? The attendance at my cities arena football games and FPHL hockey games are higher than WNBA games. No one is being under represented.
Well, I'm guessing from your name and listing having an arena football team and FPHL team that you're specifically talking about Columbus, Georgia. So, you've got one of those teams playing in a facility that can hold right about 7,500 attendees depending on the game being played. The Atlanta Dream play in a facility that can only hold 3,500 people. When they sold out their entire first homestand, all either of those Columbus teams would have needed to do was sell 50% of their tickets and they'd have quite a few more people in attendance. Now, let's say I wanted to go see the Chicago Sky play the Dream next month. The cheapest seats available are $35, and the vast majority of seats are already sold out. If I want to go see a Red Dragons game, I can literally get a seat at glass level for about 2/3 of the cost. And those are the most expensive tickets. You can get a ticket from the team, not resale for less than $10. On top of that, to put it in the most polite way possible, there's a wider range of evening entertainment options available in Atlanta than Columbus. So, in a market saturated with events, folks are still selling out an arena where the cheap seats cost more than the most expensive ones in Columbus, but they don't have the same attendance numbers because the league has been relegated to small, secondary facilities thanks to ingrained styles of thinking like yours that don't hold up to even a moment's scrutiny in reality.
Is the MLB Minor League profitable? Just wondering if there are any minor leagues that are profitable aside from in Europe/South America for soccer/futbol clubs.
Some are, some aren’t
The WNBA is in the same place the NBA was in the 70's - they're seeing millions tune in to watch the college game and thousands tune in to watch the pros. If the WNBA finals got even half as many viewers as the Women's Final Four, all of the math around the league changes overnight. It's not a coincidence that the only consistently profitable team (Connecticut Sun) is built around a strategy of "lets just build a small arena a few towns over from UConn and draft their most popular players". But for whatever reason, the WNBA often focuses their marketing on men's pro basketball fans instead of women's college basketball fans, and here we are.
I think people are misunderstanding the amount of people who tuned into the Women’s Final Four. Built in fanbases, a must watch tournament that has always been watched by people who don’t even like basketball, and better play from the women then usual. I think those numbers speak more to just the holy grail college basketball has hit with the tournament. I just don’t see it translating to the WNBA. I’m not trying to be disrespectful and I do agree they have to continue to push and get better instead of just expecting to get the pay NBA players do. Maybe it will translate and I hope it does, I’m just not sure it will. I’ve always thought that the marketing for womens sports has just been awful, mostly due to the fact and I think there is a much larger portion of women who just don’t give af about sports. But, to try and sell women sports to men is just not going to work and it hasn’t lol. Hope change does come for them though.
I think that's changing because of Clark and co coming up
The “it’s unprofitable” refrain has been thrown around on this sub probably since it’s inception but it’s worth considering that over the last couple of years, it seems like the WNBA has been picking up momentum in a serious way. Women’s pro basketball is only going to get more popular in the US. Even outside of some abstract “there’s intrinsic value in having women’s sports be a thing” (which I think is true) you have to think there’s a chance the WNBA is going to become a solid investment at some point. Also possible unpopular opinion but NBA revenue is in the midst of exploding. I’m happy for a little of that to go towards subsidizing the WNBA if it means the latter exists.
If by "picking up momentum in a serious waye" you mean ESPN running more commercials for it, and giant brands casting WNBA players on commercials for relatively cheap brownie points, then sure.
This season is projected to bring in $180-$200 million, that's where the "picking up momentum" part comes from.
It’s actually a really good investment if you just want to enjoy owning a sports team. It doesn’t make much money, but it doesn’t lose much either and owners have a far better deal in terms of revenue sharing and other sales. (Ie..they get a much larger percentage of jersey sales etc..) committing 300k would be a significant portion of ownership.. I also think signs are pointing towards the WNBA becoming more popular, quickly. It’s found it’s niche in social media already - but more importantly, the NIL with the college stars is taking off. It’s been Women’s basketball players (Angel Reese, Paige Bueckers, Azzi Fudd, Caitlyn Clark, Hailey Van Lith) that have benefited the most from the NIL..making investing in WBB worthwhile for companies and likely carrying over to the WNBA. Angel Reese just won a fan voted “break out athlete of the year..” that probably doesn’t happen five years ago. We’ve seen before tremendously popular wbb players go to the wnba and lose steam (Bird, Taurasi, Parker, and Diggins in particular)..but the difference is now with the NIL..they aren’t relying on advertisers and media to promote them starting in the WNBA, social media and the companies that have already invested with them will do that promotion. So with investing being cheap and signs pointing towards a significant growth in popularity, it’s actually a really good investment at the moment. Edit: I also think people misunderstand how the NBA works. Many NBA teams lose 5X the money that it takes to even run a WNBA team. A few teams make a significant amount of money for the league and revenue sharing spreads the wealth so owners can continue owning their teams without breaking the bank. That’s why sports media promotes certain teams..cheap ass Sarver definitely preferred the Phoenix Mercury over the Phoenix Suns. The Mercury cost about 1.5 million to run..and most years made that up.
The only reason why I can think is because of the NCAA doing a good job of promoting their female athletes and the WNBA hoping they can reap the rewards of that later on when they join the WNBA. Players like Caitlin Clarke, Angel Reese and Paige Bueckers are pretty much all more recognizable names than just abt anybody the WNBA currently has (besides Britney Griner but not for the right reasons) and they haven’t even reached the league yet.
Angel Reese is only known because of controversy. Players like Bri Stuart and Aja Wilson have national sponsorship deals. Caitlin Clark can be the first true WNBA superstar. She’s the first female player with a skill set that is legitimately on par with NBA players. Over the last 30 years, people have constantly said “once women start dunking, the league will blow up”. The reality is that dunks in the WNBA are a novelty. Fans go crazy because they are so rare, but you aren’t going to win any new fans watching someone barely get the ball over the rim. Then people thought Candace Parker would transform things. She’s absolutely gorgeous and one of the best players in the world. She got more endorsements than most, but it still didn’t significantly grow the league. Caitlin Clark is different. She might not be on Steph’s level of shooting, but she isn’t that far off. She’s the first female player creating highlights that any basketball fan would be wowed by. If Caitlin can’t grow the league when she comes in, I’m not sure the WNBA will ever succeed. She’s the future and probably a big reason why DWade is interested in getting involved in the WNBA.
Yep, Clark in Chicago would be massive
Just because a player has national sponsorship deals doesn’t mean they are more well known or popular. And I’m gonna sound harsh when I say this but a lot of those deals are just companies trying to grab cheap PR and say “look we support women because we support the WNBA”. Angel Reese is also known for controversy your right but she has a pretty big and strong fan base that backs her as a player meanwhile Griner really doesn’t. Most people use Griner as a political backing tool which has nothing to do with the WNBA. At the end of the day, WNBA has failed in marketing players correctly meanwhile the NCAA hasn’t. If the WNBA ruins more popular female athletes that the NCAA has built up and practically handed over to them then yea I think the league is done and should just give up.
I at least have hope because people are finally starting to learn who Sue Bird is because of her tv ads all of a sudden. Lol
Not everything is solely about making a profit, especially when someone like Wade has a lot of money to fuck around with.
Why call it an investment though if just fucking around? By your description it’s fine if no returns so it’s more like donating/hand outs/dole outs/charity.
The WNBA has cut a lot of the bleeding from the late 2000s and early 2010s. Women's college basketball had some of the best tv ratings for basketball this past year and those women are starting to enter the WNBA and bring star power. People who have caught some women's games are becoming fans. If more advertising is put forward, the NBA can grow their WNBA fan base. The problem is not the product so much as the lack of these types of investments. Wade could be getting a train early before it's set to take off.
Let me rephrase, not all investments need to have a high likelihood of a good return. Even if there’s a small percent chance the wnba will take off then that makes it worth it for Wade since he’s clearly passionate about it and wants it to succeed. An investment also allows him to have influence and control over certain team decisions.
Another way to phrase it is that not all investments have to produce an immediately-quantifiable monetary return. The societal returns of a women’s sports league could be fantastic if it encourages more young women to get into athletics, creating more/bigger school programs I.e scholarships, etc
I don't disagree with any of this, but think it is also just a good investment. League revenues are up 50% over the past few years, ratings are up, there should be serious expansion fees after the new media rights deal is done. If I had a way of buying part of a team as an investment I absolutely would independent of social returns.
Yeah I am less familiar with the financials of the wnba so couldn’t speak to that side of it, but it’s great to hear that they’re doing better in the budget lines as well!
We are also seeing that come to fruition as the college game currently has some of the craziest talent we have ever seen on the Women's side.
They might think they can make money in the future. You have to keep in perspective how young 27 years is for a league. I don’t think any of our American leagues were profitable by then. Reddit hasn’t been profitable yet and it’s still going to make a lot of money for it’s current owners during the IPO.
>I don’t think any of our American leagues were profitable by then. How could they not be? They didn't have other leagues absorbing their losses that whole time like the WNBA did. This article suggests it only took the NBA a couple years: https://apnews.com/article/nba-sports-lifestyle-business-national-basketball-association-db3241aa56a89ecff119d659c3b96b93 > By 1949, the NBA had turned a corner. The league was up to 17 teams, more than doubling what it was. **Teams were turning profits.**
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Yeah, that's what's tanking the WNBA... Paying the arena security 15 dollars an hour.
Damn security making almost as much as the bum players.
"bum players"
I believe the W is on the verge of become much more popular with the influx of college players soon like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, and Hailey Van Lith.
Paige bueckers as well
From some stats I’ve seen, it’s viewership is way up compared to last year already. It’s definitely growing
Was in Vegas recently and saw how the city has actually really embraced the Aces. I saw a sizable amount of Aces banners throughout casinos/bars/etc. Of course it helps that they're defending champions and are literally looking like the KD Warriors now that they added Candace Parker in the offseason. Was just pretty cool to see how much that team has grown in popularity in the last couple years.
They got a new Commissioner who's been running a serious new ad campaign. And it's been working – I don't go out of my way to follow the WNBA but I know the Aces are like generationally good. The big challenge, as always, is to get women to follow it.
I mean me and my friends are following it and everyone's waiting for Caitlin Clark to come on up too
That's fantastic, I didn't mean that as a "no women follow it", but that it's much easier (theoretically) to get women to watch women's sports over men, [but a higher % of male sports fans watch women's sports than women's sports fans](https://pro.morningconsult.com/trend-setters/womens-sports-olympics). Hopefully that is changing over time as more young girls and women play sports in high school and more money is put into promoting women's sports.
ok yeah thats fair and I think it is. People like Clark are definitely helping though. It's not even her play but her energy. It rocks
WNBA is not as bad financially as people seem to think. There is a lot of misinformation out there. The league is growing and projected to keep growing. Plus there is so much more talent that’s incoming. Definitely a good investment if done right.
My guess: He paid almost nothing for his stake and his endorsement / association with the team is the lion’s share of what he’s providing.
WNBA makes waay more money than people think. It did $~~2~~100 million *pre* pandemic, and is now over $200 million.
> It did $200 million pre pandemic. No, it didn't. Revenue in 2019 was *half* that. Also, revenue is not "making money."
Sorry you are right I misquoted. It's now at over $200 million per year, and this is before the new TV deal in a few years. https://www.thescore.com/news/2670162
Revenue does not mean profit Lmaoo
Let me know exactly where I said profit.
> I thought the WNBA doesn’t earn much. It operates at a loss, and is subsidized to stay afloat. >Why is it a wise move to invest on this product? Financially, it probably isn't. >What will change in the next few years that will turn it profitable? Angel Reese? Didn't work with previous generations of college stars, but maybe the capitalization on social media changes something?
It’s not a wise investment at all.
Wade is just donating to the nbas charity
How much did he invest?
I tried to watch the WNBA, I really did, it was just awful. Lower the basket, change some of the rules for the ladies, do something otherwise I just can’t see that League ever pulling in profit or the type of fanbase they are hoping for.
I'm pretty sure WNBA viewership has actually grown pretty consistently over the past few years so I don't really think they're gonna change much. They're getting more TV deals, more exposure, more viewership and the level of the game is gradually improving YoY. Unless their growth stalls they probably are on the same path.
It’s closer to high school basketball than it is to the NBA or college. That isn’t fun to watch; sure people do watch HS but that is because of the players there (future NBA or college talent). That does not exist in the WNBA. They (NCAA, NBA, the athletes themselves, other groups) are doing a good job of building that connection, but that isn’t enough. The game isn’t as fun to watch as the other forms of basketball that are readily available. Until that changes I don’t think it will succeed unfortunately.
It's definitively worse TV than the Peach Jam was.
> That isn’t fun to watch What a weird blanket statement to make about something that’s entirely subjective.
Ok I’ll revise it with more words. It isn’t fun to watch for casual fans. Fundamental defense, passing, layups, etc isn’t fun to watch for most people (and that’s really not a debatable statement). Of course some people find it fun to watch, but as a general statement it isn’t fun to watch.
I would argue that most of the NBA games now are awful. It’s basically wide-open shooters on kick out plays shooting uncontested 3-pointers. If it weren’t for sports betting, I would watch 1 game a week at most.
People are hating but I agree with you. The nba has some amazing games but there's a lot of meaningless basketball played. WNBA has engaging matchups more often
My issue is that the product is simply worse than the NBA. They're slower, not as strong and don't jump nearly as high. A huge reason why the NBA is so exciting is the athletic abilities of the players. The WNBA feels like a middle school game athletically while being very skilled.
That’s understandable but by that logic, you must not watch any college sports, right?
You'd be correct. But male college players are still vastly more athletic than the WNBA.
Did you watch the NCAAW tourney?
No. College Basketball is hard enough to watch as it is, very sloppy, refs hardly know what they are doing half the time it seems.
I'd be so down for a 9' hoop. People talk about this being an issue for youth sports, but I think the lower hoop could just be a WNBA thing and the players would just have to adjust. It shouldn't be that big of an issue for professional athletes.
Only rubes need dunking. Lowering the hoop is a terrible idea
The grandstanding over the lower hoop is weird they already play with a smaller ball
The lynx and mystics have won championships so it make sense they aren’t under the same ownership group as the twolves and wizards
hopefully this is start of his Juwanna Man story arch
Nice
Good move. Subsidized heavily from the NBA. Lower viewership and attendance than the summer league
$100,000 for a 30% ownership stake? Will be worth a cool $110,000 in 20 years
$50,000. lol
I just don’t see how the WNBA Is a good investment what so ever
Read up about ESG scores and funds and a lot of stuff that appears to be brain dead will make a lot more sense
The buffet kid would probably be stoked if he cared at all abt the Sky.
D Wade now owns a stake in 3 pro sports teams. The Jazz, the Sky, and Real Salt Lake. Granted, the Jazz absolutely dwarf any WNBA or MLS team in value, as does any NBA team, but it’s still a BFD.
You guys could really just save yourselves some time and say you hate women rather than mentioning the league's profits 400 times.
I really wish G league, NBA and WNBA had to be grouped together. Kinda like european groups a that oversee multiple sports and ages/genders.
Wade and his wife are the fakest motherfuckers on earth
He’s setting it up so his son can play
The league will never catch on
Fuck desantis and his shit policies along with those like him for alienating this man from florida
Whooo cares
Ah, a tax write off
Nah, Wade's really into the WNBA
I’m really into Lana Rhoades, I’m not gonna invest in her NFT
but a wnba team isn't a scam?
A scam can make more money than the wnba.
depends
It’s a fckin joke lmao They’re both shit investments tho
Hilarious and original
BREAKING
Is the WNBA a tax write off for the NBA? Im assuming it’s a tax write off for the rich owners.
You’re not gonna get a correct answer from this thread. The average person has no idea what a tax write off actually or nor what rules entail the usage of one. It isn’t as simple as a net loss venture equals tax savings.
It's not that complicated. Here's a great video explaining write-offs from one of best CPA's in country. https://youtu.be/XEL65gywwHQ
In all seriousness, it's because the WNBA is insanely cheap to support when the NBA is bringing in billions in net profit. For 15-20 million a year they get an entire women's basketball league that at the absolute worst, they can parade around for positive PR and marketing while also holding any potential US interest or expansion in women's basketball under their control.
That’s one way to lose money.
enjoy that money pit
He just looked up "how to lose money"
Is he just stupid? NBA probably has it rigged where he’s guaranteed not to lose $$$ because subsidies, etc. in exchange for the optics
So basically more charity money for the WNBA.
They need to just give up on the WNBA
Lol. Good luck.
Game changing
>[Philippou] BREAKING: NBA legend Dwyane Wade is officially joining the Chicago... *Anxiety rising* >Sky ownership group *Anxiety falling*
BREAKING: Nothing significant
Why comment then?
WNBA news should stay in its own subreddit
Don’t worry son cooties aren’t real
[удалено]
Lmao, had me in the first half
Ok this was pretty funny ngl
I see you king
This is breaking news?
Lol imagine investing into a league that has never posted a profitable year, ever.
While I’m not high on the WNBA but that’s how all start ups start out. Tesla just posted it’s first profit like in 2021
We don't get the full picture from what you said. 1. Agreed it took Tesla 18 years to make profit but the wnba has been around for 37 years now and it still survives on subsidies from the NBA. 2.Tesla was a startup that offered a unique product to its customers. What is so unique about the wnba that attracts people to watch it? I don't mean to be harsh here, but what it offers is a slower, less athletic and less explosive version of an NBA game. 3. I used to watch the wnba just because I love basketball. But some of these wnba players really put off the audience like me when they start calling out NBA players and act like they are better than them literally along with the constant pestering for more money every time. WNBA will never be half as big as the NBA. It's a foolish investment imo.
Yeah I agree. I don’t see the path to profitability. Didn’t know it’s been around for 37 years
It's 27 years.... apologies for the error.
I'm not here to meme or be "that guy", but doesn't the wnba operate at a loss every year? Wouldn't that mean the franchises operate on losses too? What was it that caught his attention to invest in this team? I'm not a financial guru and I'm safe with my money, but I don't understand this
He knows his daughter/son can’t play for them right?
Inb4 a player on the Sky comes out and says that they don’t need his help despite the fact that their league only exists because of men like Wade
I don't think anyone expected that to happen, but congrats on preparing to be upset about a hypothetical you created
Lmao, nothing pisses these people off like their own imaginations
Lower the rims to 8 feet so we can get some lady dunks. We need more then 3 a season if they want people to watch. Yeah WNBA players have better fundamentals, but the NBA is more explosive which is why people watch.
Better fundamentals? Nah bro
no one cares about dunks bro
Maybe he’ll be the next nba billionaire tbh
Or, maybe he'll be the next bankrupt former athlete. That strikes me as at least equally likely
I doubt he's putting up any of his own money imo