Leading OFF
WNBA, women’s sports are growing more mainstream
Saturday afternoon on ABC, basketball assassin Maya Moore took another game by the throat — this one the WNBA All-Star Game — and killed it off for her team.
You might not know Moore, with the WNBA’s games mostly going untelevised nationally, and the out-of-market games available on an Internet-only paid subscription service. Or maybe you lost track of her after what Moore referred to earlier this year as “The Drop” — the decline in women’s basketball coverage from college to the pros.
You’d think Moore’s heroics would stand out, a woman in sports finally getting a spotlight moment on a national network.
Instead, Saturday merely settled into the flow of the sports year, one remarkable woman after another earning a long-deserved national spotlight. From Carli Lloyd to Serena Williams to Moore and many other WNBA stars, one flowing to the next.
It has been a year of celebration in broader public view. The U.S. Women’s World Cup victory was watched by 26.7 million, and hundreds of thousands descended on New York’s City Hall for a parade and ceremony.
Williams won another Grand Slam event, completing her “Serena Slam” and landing on covers of magazines worldwide.
Moore is a thoughtful star, defending her 2014 MVP award in the relative obscurity of the Minneapolis media market. But like so many other supporters of women’s sports eager for the progress that elevates coverage to the level of men — the primary obstacle, incidentally, to women’s sports receiving the sponsorship and audience to bury the sexist arguments against these top-flight leagues — Moore can feel the landscape changing.
“Super humbled and grateful,” Moore told Sports Weekly at her postgame new conference about starring in a year with Lloyd and Williams. “Those are two of the biggest names, on two of the big- was going to the NBA. And then when the W came.
“So people have been practicing, they want to be part of history, they want to continue to make this league grow. So I feel like the caliber of player you get has been higher. And the excitement around the players entering the league has been higher, too. People watch them in high school, then college, then follow them to the WNBA. So those fan bases will also help the league grow.”
One of those people, Alex Bentley of the Chicago Sun, scored 23 points Saturday. Bentley grew up going to Fever games and idolizing Catchings, who didn’t even watch women play basketball until the 1996 Olympics, and for whom the WNBA didn’t exist until her freshman year of college.
“I used to watch her,” Bentley said of Catchings. “I wanted to be where she was. And now, playing with her, passing her the ball, it’s just incredible.”
Now it’s Moore’s turn and Bentley’s turn and Brittney Griner’s turn, the 6-9 wonder of the league who flushed home a dunk and buried a three on consecutive possessions, and Elena Delle Donne’s turn and so many to come. And every one of them, serving as a model for even greater players to come, watching, learning, emulating.
“You guys know my story,” Catchings said Saturday night, the game over, her torch passed. “I wanted to be in the NBA like from seventh grade on. When the W came, my goals switched and I wanted to be in the WNBA. So looking at it from the beginning, everybody talked about these players. You saw Dawn (Staley) and you saw Sheryl (Swoopes), and you saw Rebecca Lobo. You saw them everywhere, and I just remember saying I want to be like that one day. I want to be where they are. I want to be remembered like they’ll be remembered. And so now you fast forward, and I will be. Like the legacy that they left for me and just the opportunity that they gave for all of us to be able to have this and to be able to play in.
“A lot of people doubted the WNBA and how long it would last, and we’ll be celebrating 20 years next year. That’s a heck of a thing to say. I’m just blessed to have been a part of it.” leading up to 2015. The WNBA as it is now, and as it will be, would not exist if not for Tamika Catchings of the Indiana Fever, who just played in her league-record 10th All-Star Game. Catchings entered the league in 2002, when viability was a significant question for women’s professional basketball. She’ll exit next year, after playing in her fourth Olympics, as the WNBA is looking to expand beyond the current 12 teams.
“We’ve come a long way,” Catchings told Sports Weekly on Friday. “We definitely have. And we have a long way to go. But you look at the coverage, our relationship with ESPN has allowed us to branch out and showcase the talent that we have. I think it’s cool because you look at players who are coming into the league now, they’ve literally had the WNBA to grow up and want to be a part of since the beginning. For me, the WNBA didn’t come around until my freshman year of college. So up until then, I knew I more benefit it is to all of us. I think it increases both appreciation and interest in women’s sports. And not just because they’re women — because they’re incredible athletes having an incredible impact on their sport, their team and our country. I can’t quantify it, but I feel it is building interest and support for women’s sports and in following women athletes. And I’m not even sure it’s really a conscious thing. I think it’s just becoming more of the fabric. And then it becomes part of the norm. And it’s really exciting to be on that journey.”
The remarkable part isn’t the discovery by more and more segments of the mainstream media that these incredible athletes with remarkable back stories are deeply compelling to America once introduced to the country the way male athletes have been for more than a century. It’s that it took so long. That progress has been incremental, but real in the years gest stages imaginable. It’s an awesome place to be in. And it’s beautiful, because I feel like we’re all connected. The greater sports world gets to celebrate more things because of the awesome year that we’ve had. And it’s only going to get better.”
There have been breakthroughs everywhere. Melissa Mayeux, a French teenager and shortstop, was added to Major League Baseball’s international registration list, making her eligible to be signed by an MLB team. Four National Women’s Soccer League teams have set attendance records since the end of the World Cup this season.
And in the WNBA, where attendance is up 4.4% over last year at this time, the stars promise more flags will be planted in the ground in years to come.
“You just see women’s sports becoming more mainstream,” WNBA President Laurel Richie told Sports Weekly. “And the more mainstream it becomes, the