It's becoming increasingly clear that nobody is safe from the current economic crisis and newspapers have been hit particularly hard.
Newspaper readership has been declining for years now and in the middle of an economic crisis, they are pretty much forced to make staff reductions.
As documented by Michael Arceneaux of theRoot.com, even recession writers (Lou Carlozo of the Chicago Tribune) are being cut in response to the recession. And in a climate where the people covering the recession become victims of he recession, you can bet sports writers will be equally -- if not more -- affected.
Bill Benner of the Indianapolis Business Journal writes about the impact the current economic situation my have on sports journalism:
Nonetheless, I worry that the difficulties facing daily newspapers might force them, here and elsewhere, to use stringers or generic wire copy more often. I worry more that readers won’t notice or care.If sports are considered the “toy department of journalism”, what on earth does that mean for coverage of the WNBA? In that framework, the WNBA would be like a “cereal box prize department of journalism”.
Then again, we are transitioning into a new age of information dissemination, one cluttered by blogs, Web sites and 24-hour cable coverage. Sports, long considered the “toy department” of journalism, could be an easy target for cost-conscious accountants and editors.
Thus, it stands to reason that what little professional coverage of the WNBA was out there will be cut. And in my one season of really paying attention to media coverage of women’s sports, wire coverage of the WNBA is almost not even worth reading.
So it is not unreasonable to believe that that the economic downturn could have an adverse affect on the WNBA in comparison to men’s sports. Of course, that problem is not new, as described in an AfterEllen.com post last week:
It has been a catch-22 for women's professional sports teams for decades: newspapers and magazines won't waste space on leagues with no fan base; leagues can't expand their fan base without media coverage.So for a league that desperately needs to promote narratives about women in sports, how might a reduction in newspaper coverage hinder that process? How might blogs, twitter, and other Web 2.0 or social media make up for the lack of newspaper coverage?
I have a few thoughts…but it’s difficult to predict what the future might hold…
Lack of access is not helpful to the WNBA
Whatever you might think about the state of current WNBA coverage in newspapers, professional journalists have one massive advantage that even the most dedicated blogger might have a difficult time matching: a press credential.
Anyone – ahem, me? – can sit at home and spend time writing about watching WNBA games. What we don’t have is that behind the scenes perspective.
Access to press conferences, the locker room, and building relationships with players and coaches are vital to a sport’s ability to construct narratives that include character development as well as reports on the game action that we can all see from the stands, the television or a webcast.
To take a page from sports history, Howard Cosell’s relationship with Muhammad Ali is arguably as important as Ali’s greatness – while Ali performed, Cosell framed the narrative and presented it to the audience (reciprocally, one could argue that Ali is therefore among the most important figures to sports journalism because without him, Cosell would not be the legend he is today).
Cuts in professional journalists covering the teams means equal cuts in the amount of privileged information fans get about the WNBA. I would argue that the stories that we get beyond the action on the court are absolutely essential to building a sports brand. I happen to think print journalists are vital to establishing that. I also think there are alternatives that might help.
The Web 2.0 revolution…will not be televised…but might be on Twitter…
I have written a few pieces in the past about the role that Web 2.0 media plays in building the WNBA brand, engaging fan voice, and shaping the way we see the game. And the WNBA is definitely making strides in terms of how they use social media, as described by AfterEllen.com:
WNBA teams started their social media blitz earlier this year, offering tickets to people who joined team fan pages on Facebook. They brought it with a league Twitter. They asked each team to set up their own Twitters (see below). And, perhaps most importantly, they encouraged individual players to begin Tweeting about their teams, their lives, their training, their breakfast, anything to forge a connection with fans.Yet I would argue the WNBA could still do some tiny things to better utilize the social media it is working with. Women’s Professional Soccer is still by far one the leaders in utilizing social media if you ask me.
It’s not just about having a Facebook/MySpace presence or having a YouTube page but making people aware of those things and, you know, actually making them seem like they are an integral part of what the organization does and how it builds community.
Case in point: from the front page of the WPS website, I can find 8 different ways to connect with the league on the main navigation bar. It’s a button even…that says connect.
The WNBA has both a YouTube and Facebook presence but you have to scroll down the page to find out about the Facebook link and after a few minutes of looking, I have yet to find a link to their YouTube page.
The issue here is not just about having these social media opportunities available, but somehow making them visible and easily accessible to consumers…ahem…fans. And to some extent they are doing that, in particular with ticket giveaways on Facebook.
Building a massive word-of-mouth campaign...
So I wholeheartedly agree with what Megan Hunter at Because I played sports wrote in her coverage of the WNBA draft about how bloggers could be instrumental in the growth of the game:
While I realize that there is much more research to be done, I know that the most important thing we need to do as ex-players, moms and female athletes is to get people to the games and start taking control of conversations.But the key question for the WNBA is how do they take that energy and integrate it into what they do?
We need to create one of the biggest word of mouth campaigns that has ever been created - one that will save WNBA and create opportunities for years to come.
With the economy shaving away at the future of the league, the time is now for us to step up to the plate. Now that the WNBA is open to feedback and willing to engage transparently with the public, I believe we can help turn this thing around.
Furthermore, if the next move forward is for the web to become “invisibly present in everyday appliances” (see video below) how can the WNBA be sure to infiltrate the collective sports consciousness? (This by the way is a scary thought to me, but I caution that it’s not George Orwell that will be rolling over in his grave as much as Aldous Huxley – the control of society through learned desires…scary).
Among the many things WPS has done well in terms of its marketing, I would argue that its Fan Corner social media site is an excellent example of an attempt to encourage and formalize fan involvement in the game.
Of particular relevance to the issue of blogging, they have a section on their social media site specifically for fans to create blogs. Of course these blogs aren’t as customizable as your average Blogspot or Wordpress blog, but it provides a space for fan voice that is somewhat unique. Most importantly, it encourages fans to consolidate that voice in one place, without controlling the multitude of voices out there. (Note: the Phoenix Mercury already have a social media site for their team -- Cafe Merc -- with 247 members)
Idea – could the WNBA have a list of blogs they deem valuable listed in some sort of space on their website? Would it be that difficult to have a feed with recent fan blogs aside from the “approved” fan bloggers already there?
I would argue that WPS is leading the way in this social media blitz and the WNBA should follow despite its current progress.
“Nothing from nothing means nothing”
Ultimately, I suppose my message about the impact of reductions in newspaper coverage on the WNBA is as follows (and, yes, partially inspired by Billy Preston):
If newspapers were not widely or consistently covering the WNBA to begin with, then the WNBA does not have much to lose from reductions in newspaper coverage.
However, the increasing reductions just make it imperative that the WNBA does figure out how to use social media effectively and quickly. As “traditional” media becomes even less reliable, you can bet that leagues like the WNBA (and WPS) will get even less publicity.
Of course, this is all uncharted territory – nobody has the perfect solutions for how to use Web 2.0 for marketing a relatively young (niche?) sports league. And that is all the more reason for the WNBA to get as creative as possible with how it encourages and channels the energy of its fans.
Related Articles:
Women’s pro sports: Facebook awaits you
http://becauseiplayedsports.com/2009/04/11/2009-wnba-draft-a-journey-back-to-my-love-for-womens-basketball/#more-1101
Interview With Peter Wilt: WPS Chicago’s CEO Takes One Step Backward For Two Giant Leaps Forward
http://www.amandavandervort.com/blog/2008/04/interview-with-peter-wilt-wps-chicagos-ceo-takes-two-steps-backward-for-one-giant-leap-forward/
The Machine is Us/ing Us
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g
Transition Points:
If the WNBA needs coverage, then what of a new women’s league like Women’s Professional Soccer? I’m curious about their outlook given that they are starting up in the middle of a terrible economy. It would be terrible if the league’s ability to succeed was stifled by the unfortunate coincidence of launching when the economy is struggling…
The final “Recession Diaries” blog from Lou Carlozo that was cut from the Chicago Tribune is absolutely worth a read…because if you can figure out what about that blog post led the Chicago Tribune to pull the post, I’d like to know. I’m at a loss.
Fantasy job musings: I was musing with a friend this weekend about how my fantasy job before getting all tangled up in thinking about racial inequality in education was sports writing. And I would gladly drop everything and write for a WNBA team (*cough* ChicagoSky *cough*) this summer if they covered travel and basic living expenses (no nachos and beer, I promise). Yeah, ok, that’s presumptuous – there are probably hundreds of other folks who would “glad drop everything and write for a WNBA team this summer”. And why on earth would someone want a job that is likely unstable and cut more often than created? But hey, worth a try…right?
Response to fantasy job musings: So the logical response from my friend about this fantasy job of being a sports writer was laughter – I mean seriously, leaving graduate school to cover a game? But honestly, my reasoning is simply that I enjoy basketball and as I’ve tried to demonstrate in the past, I do believe that the WNBA is valuable as a tool for challenging gender inequality simply by the way it could shape perceptions of women and what “womanhood” means. I realize that could be trivial – the father of a girl I dated in high school remarked to me the first time I had dinner at their house, “Back in my day we were protesting Vietnam and now the biggest thing you can write about is sports?” OK, fair enough – sports are not the biggest issue in the world. I know that…but everyone has to find their niche right? I like basketball…and think some good could come someday from writing about it…who know
Logging you in...
Phoenix Stan · 830 weeks ago
Ethan · 830 weeks ago
Re: WPS vs WNBA, WPS has to emerge from the shadow of the defunct WUSA. WNBA has to emerge from the shadow of the NBA. Since WNBA is a much older league (WPS and WUSA combined are a drop in the bucket) I think WNBA also has to overcome the negative perceptions (real and imagined) left over from the early years. BTW - this has nothing to do with misogyny in general, though that of course is a factor (crutch?) for some.
Now: In 2008/2009, WNBA has another image problem. On the one hand, ESPN2 gives the league national exposure. On the other, they often treat the game worse than a NCAA game. Example: Both coaches are often "wired" during the run of play, creating a cacophony with the game audio. Male sports feature "wired" coaches too, but as mortar between game sections. During long time outs and no commercial break scheduled, for example.
If you haven't seen the WPS game of the week on Fox Soccer Channel, it's completely different. The league gets national exposure and is treated respectfully. FSC knows that WPS is a fledgling league, but the announcers frame their comments in terms of the quality of play, not the youth of the league itself. I can get you a sample copy of a WPS game on FSC as desired. Contact me privately please.
Ultimately, WNBA can learn a great deal from WPS. I hope they do. I'll be very interested to experience my first WNBA game in person in June.
Q McCall 58p · 830 weeks ago
Totally with you that the negative perceptions of the WNBA are partially due to the fact that some people have "made up their minds" about what it is because it's been around for a while...
I've been following WPS news but have not seen a game. Need to get on that.
Another point of comparison might be what the Seattle Sounders have done as an MLS expansion team...I find that fascinating..
petrel · 830 weeks ago
2. As for press credentials, the WNBA has been very good in giving non-traditional news suppliers a press credential. For example, SPMSportspage.com's sportswriters have WNBA press credentials, even though SPMSportspage is a website and no longer prints out a magazine. In this respect, the WNBA is in the vanguard - can you imagine, say, the Atlanta Braves giving up a press credential to internet media?
3. One of the problems with the Internet is that the sources of information are diffuse. This is great in that the print/television monopoly has been broken up; this is not good in that there is no bully pulpit for great journalists like Howard Cosell. There really isn't a Howard Cosell of the WNBA, and if there were one, how would you locate him or her on the internet? Cosell had ABC TV's Wide World of Sports and Monday Night Football as giant platforms from where he could expound from the top - but due to the democratic nature of the internet (which I wouldn't give up for a second), there is no platform (so to speak) which is as high as the one Cosell commanded.
4. I wonder if an advantage of Women's Professional Soccer is that it is much more bottom-up than top-down. It seems that the WNBA follows the monopolistic model of the NBA; the W wants to control the information gates like any well-run corporation. WPS has the advantage of starting with a brand new model; the advice "why doesn't the WNBA do what WPS is doing?" might not be appropriate because the WPS has no baggage and can afford to take risks - the entire league is a risk - whereas the WNBA's hands are tied by its alliances.
5. I know that the WNBA has been asking for a list of blogs that cover the W. However, they've not made it clear what they plan to *do* with this information, which shows that the WNBA has a long way to go to achieve the kind of transparency that its followers wish it had.
6. If the Atlanta Dream paid me a decent salary and travel expenses for my blogging, I'd quit my job so fast that all that would be left of me at work would be a puff of smoke and a pencil suspended in mid-air, much like a cartoon.
7. The Vietnam War was about money and power. So is sports, even though it calls itself "entertainment". The sports industry is a very powerful force in the world; someone should be writing about it. Why not you?
Phoenix Stan · 830 weeks ago
I will also be covering the Mercury this summer and just last week spent an hour interviewing Ann Meyers Drysdale. The Mercury are very welcoming and appreciative of the coverage.
At SBN, we will probably start-up a WNBA league section once we've identified enough bloggers. SBN has close to 200 sites covering every major league but not yet the WNBA.
Contact me if you are interested! :)
Q McCall 58p · 830 weeks ago
re: 3 -- even if we don't get the second coming of Cosell, I still think journalists can and will play a large role in shaping how people see a league like the WNBA. At the very least, a "first do no harm" type clause would help avoiding articles like the Parker one that showed up in ESPN the Mag.
re: 4 -- I think the WNBA could still do a few things WPS is doing in terms of the way they use social media and try to integrate, but I agree that the business model is definitely different. Should certainly not be taken as a strict analogy, but hopefully a spring board for ideas...? Perhaps the question is, what can the WNBA apply from what WPS is doing?
re: 7 -- Nice connection between Vietnam and sports. Unfortunately, I was young and naive enough to give that particular father plenty of other reasons to dislike me. Oh well. ;)
Clay Kallam · 830 weeks ago
That said, the death spiral of newspapers to me doesn't make the Web more important, but rather TV.
First, an adie: As the founder and long-time publisher of Full Court Press, and the managing editor of Women's Basketball magazine, and having gotten accreditation to everything from the state high school championships to the Olympics, I know the advantages, and lack of advantages, of covering a WNBA team. The quality of coverage, in truth, won't change much with more dedicated reporters, for one major reason: The majority, or close to majority, of players and female coaches in the league are gay, and will not, for good reason, come out of the closet -- therefore they will not tell their stories, open up to the press or do anything that would endanger their "secret."
That's one obstacle -- another is the fragmented nature of the Web. In a newspaper, readers are exposed to stories they might not be looking for; thus they might read a story about the WNBA or NASCAR, if it piques their interest. On the Web, though, people look at what they've already determined they want to look at, and it is much, much harder to gain new fans. After all, going to every hockey site isn't going to cause a surfer to stumble over a headline about a WNBA player he went to high school with.
So with newspapers fading, TV becomes even more important, at least in terms of capturing new fans. It's really the only place where the casual fan will run across a sport unfamiliar to him -- I watched a couple minutes of club cheerleading a couple days ago -- and thus it's pretty much the only place for women's basketball to find new fans outside of the arenas.
The challenges facing the WNBA are many, and the league doesn't have the cushion of Title IX, which guarantees the survival of the sport in high school and college (even without Title IX, girls' sports will never go away in most high schools -- there are too many former players and present parents who would fight the good fight if any changes were contemplated). As I've said before, in several forums and many articles, the key is simple: Improve the product. The better the game, the more people will want to watch it; and the more people that watch it, the more likely it is to survive. It's not a noble cause, or anything like that; it's another sport, another form of entertainment, that will, and should, rise or fall on its own inherent merits.
Phoenix Stan · 830 weeks ago
I wonder though if a league that is drawing 8,000 per game (which is the 5th largest for any indoor sporting league in the world) and has a higher TV rating then the NHL really has a problem at all. The attendance numbers also show slow but steady growth year over year.
Will the WNBA ever be a "mass appeal" sport like NBA, MLB, or NFL? No. But like lots of other more niche sports such as Arena football, Lacrosse and some would even say MLS (in the states), it does have an appeal to a specific audience that one would assume would continue to grow organically. As time and societal norms progress, there will only be more acceptance of women sports and their lifestyles and not less.
As for coverage, I disagree that TV is the answer. As I am sure you've seen, TV coverage of sports in the local media is very limited. Even for the NBA, the TV coverage I've seen will never be able to go into the depth needed to satisfy even the average fan.
The online medium is perfectly poised to step in with unlimited "air time" to provide avid fans the coverage and community they desire. Sports media is moving beyond the "commoditization" of sporting news. Facts about events are no longer where value is added in the sports information food chain.
Opinion. Analysis. Community. That is the future in a connected and interactive world.
Will that produce rapid growth? No. But with the low cost of operations and overhead, online coverage doesn't need massive audiences to be financially viable. Trust me on that one.
Phoenix Stan · 830 weeks ago
I've been in a NBA locker rooms and have read and seen a LOT of sports coverage and I don't recall see reporters asking guys about their girlfriends or seeing/reading stories about their personal lives except in a very few select instances. The exceptions are almost always in a negative connotation such as Kobe in Colorado or A Rod and his thing.
Am I missing something here? Because it seems like a double standard to raise this issue when players personal lives on the men's side are not typically part of the story.
Perhaps the issue is with the reporters themselves and their discomfort with an unfamiliar situation which I am guessing is a lot like what happened when sports were integrated post WWII.
Clay Kallam · 830 weeks ago
First, the WNBA attendance is not anywhere near 8,000 a game -- and it is not growing. Like any league concerned with survival, the WNBA inflates attendance numbers, and does so blatantly. A few years ago, teams suddenly were "drawing" 1,500 more fans a game in the last week, and then, surprise, the league reported a small increase in attendance over the previous season. I have gone to most Sacramento home games since the league was founded, and though attendance last year was reported as roughly the same as the year before, there was no doubt there were many fewer actual bodies in seats.
As for the NHL, it plays to about 97% capacity in very large arenas -- it is a league that is driven by in-arena attendance, and it is tremendously successful in that regard. Also, ratings are up this year.
You mentioned the Arena Football League -- it suspended operations for a year, and may never come back (the L.A. franchise is already done). The AFL also drew many more fans to arenas than the WNBA. I'm not sure many, if any, niche leagues will survive the depression.
And yes, on-line coverage can do just fine, but my point was about growing the game. Having the same small circle of friends blog to each other, and post on message boards, isn't going to get the WNBA through these tough times. There needs to be growth, and the on-line world is much more existing communities than expanding communities.
Finally, I ran an on-line magazine devoted to women's basketball for 12 years, and trust me, there's no money there. There's too much free content.
And bloggers and such suffer from the lack of editing and the lack of accountability. They have no need to be professional and make no attempt to be unbiased, which in the long run limits the value of their coverage, especially (again) to the casual fan who is the key to the growth of the game.
Seth (aka Phx Stan) · 830 weeks ago
Large audiences are needed to support large cost structures. I won't defend the WNBA, but having a combined payroll of about $1.1m per team and sharing overhead with NBA franchises (at least for 7 of 13 teams) seems to be a more viable business model then some other 2nd and 3rd tier leagues. We'll certainly know soon enough how viable the league is and how many teams are still around when those inflated attendance numbers fall further.
Consider also the facilities. If Arco Arena is sitting empty all summer then the marginal gain by having it 1/4 full for 17 games is 100% over and above operating expenses. As long as there are enough people to cover the cost of keeping the lights on, etc . then everything above that has greater financial value to the owner. Just like the hotel business.
As for sports media, we live in a world of niche programming. Smaller audiences can support targeted content distribution IF the cost structure is contained and the overhead can be shared across a wide spectrum of sports who in aggregate attract enough eyeballs to achieve profitability.
Big advertisers with huge budgets will always have the "major" leagues as an avenue to reach mass markets with their beer and F 150's. Smaller companies with less to spend can be served with localized and targeted niche programming for much less money. Less even than local radio, TV and print. Much less in fact.
The business model is different. Not better or worse.
Same holds true when comparing "unprofessional biased bloggers" with "journalists".
There is a need in the market for unbias reporting. I would argue that need is much greater the area of business or politics then it is in sports but regardless, there's a need for the beat writer.
Blogging isn't a threat to that type of journalists and efforts to compare the two are fundamentally flawed.
Blogging is online talk radio. There is an audience for opinion and bias and at the same time the good bloggers (like the good radio hosts) know how to balance that with being credibility and not over the top.
Traditionally schooled journalists are inherently predisposed to not understand this. They, in my experience anyway, tend to view their approach to content as a sacred public trust and look down on any other form of speculation and opinion.
Sports is entertainment and supported by fans. Fans are fanatics. The facts and unbiased reporting is only the beginning of the conversation. There's room for all facets and I would argue less room for fact-based journalism then there is for opinion-based. Especially in a world where facts are so easily and readily available. Journalists shouldn't be worried about bloggers. They should be worried about the teams themselves and other sources of free facts.
The value to the consumer isn't just being added in the assembly and distribution of history. It is being added in credible and entertaining analysis.
Clay Kallam · 830 weeks ago
I have said before that I would encourage the WNBA to acknowledge that it has a significant percentage of lesbians in the league, and the league should make it as safe as possible for them to come out if they want to. That would cast the WNBA as a societal leader, and take the 800-pound gorilla out of the living room.
Too much of the league is hidden from view, and too many stories can't, or won't, be told.
Q McCall 58p · 830 weeks ago
However, like Phoenix Stan, I am reading the situation very differently.
First, with regard to television, there have been reports for years that television advertising is declining, which means networks are putting more of their content on the web. I described that little in this post from last year:
http://rethinkbball.blogspot.com/2008/06/wnba-20-...
If advertising dollars are down in general, then sure why a sport like the WNBA would fare better than other programming. There are also reports that television viewership is declining, but I'm a little wary of that data because I imagine there are some corporate interests behind that data:
http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/897424/Microsof...
You could argue that these various studies are just piggy backing off one another and merely confirming each others' results, but I have yet to see an optimistic report about the future of television, much less the use of television for what I believe is a niche league (for now).
Second, I agree with you that people are cherry picking information on the web, but people are doing that in increasing numbers with television as well -- consider the impact of DVR, Hulu, and the ability to download shows from various black market outlets. I think there are ways to introduce people to new sports and part of that is finding the existing online networks to tap into and rallying people locally (again, I'm fascinated by what the Seattle Sounders have done...and wonder what can be learned from that effort).
Third, like Stan, I don't think anybody intends to suggest that journalists should be forcing female athletes to reveal private information they don't *want* to reveal. I think for me the issue is perhaps the opposite -- there is a tendency to unnecessarily objectify and exoticize female athletes that should change if we are ever to respect the women as athletes...and thus pay to watch them as athletes.
http://contexts.org/socimages/2009/04/21/female-a...
http://nortonbooks.typepad.com/everydaysociology/...
Last, I struggle with the argument that the quality of play is ever the problem in professional sports because history tells us that changes in representations and coverage are more closely with the rise and fall of sports than quality of play. Of course, it is a different era, but I still find it hard to find evidence to support that idea.
Clay Kallam · 830 weeks ago
And that's an interesting point about quality of play. It seems to me that professional sports is a business like any other, and it's selling a product -- the 40 minutes of game time. If that 40 minutes is well-played, well-coached and entertaining, it would seem to me that it would be more attractive to fans than 40 minutes that is less well-played, less well-coached, and less entertaining.
The NBA is a much better game than college basketball, and that's reflected in the average attendance of an NBA game as opposed to a college game, and aside from the anomaly of the tournament, ratings for NBA regular season games are much higher than for regular season college games.
High school, of course, draws even less, yet one would think if just the game were the attraction, then fans would pay $5, drive two miles and park for free rather than go to an NBA or college game. To me, the quality of play (the quality of the product) is what attracts fans.
Similar comparisons could be made in baseball and other sports, but the biggest one for me is soccer: I love the World Cup but can barely watch the MLS because of the huge difference in the quality of play. And ratings and fan interest would suggest I'm not alone.
Q McCall 58p · 830 weeks ago
I have considerably less experience than you, but most of my formal journalism experience was with small online efforts…so I suppose I have a soft spot for it.
With regard to television coverage, I do think seeing a sport is the most important thing in building its brand – it’s not just about information dissemination but building a critical mass of demand for that information and seeing the game is necessary for that.
It seems that the WNBA is right to web cast games and since they’re doing that already, my argument would be to at least increase web cast coverage and make sure committed fans stay committed. Not as good as TV – people will always watch on the biggest screen possible – but it’s a low bar that would at least improve the WNBA fan experience.
As for the “quality = growth” dynamic, I think quality is obviously necessary, but not sufficient. If you look at the development of the NFL or NBA – major sports now – they were once both considered fringe sports. There was a time when the very thought of Monday Night Football was a joke. The ABA was considered by many to be more exciting than the NBA.
It’s pretty well documented that what shifted public opinion about the NFL was coverage, experimentation with camera angles, and the development of character narratives (Namath vs. Unitas was huge for the NFL). For the NBA the league was on life support in the 70’s, some would say because of an increase in black players, poor ownership, and controversy.
In addition to Magic and Larry coming along, David Stern took over and focused more on promoting individual players than the more traditional team approach. While that may have led to the spoiled prima donas we see in pro sports today, it was an effective marketing strategy.
The idea that either of these sports grew simply because the quality of play improved just doesn’t seem to match the bigger picture. The MLS vs. World Cup comparison doesn’t quite work because you are talking about a major difference in scale. And again, I have not looked at the numbers, but I would seriously doubt that World Cup ratings among U.S. viewers were that high until a) interest in soccer rose with the rise of youth soccer leagues and b) the World Cup came here in 1994.
I’m not sure that the logic works that soccer got better and therefore we saw an increase in interest.
Dave H · 830 weeks ago
I think you'll find that varies widely from city to city.
Q McCall 58p · 830 weeks ago
I was thinking about the national wire services (e.g. AP stories) which normally provide very little information.
Dave H · 830 weeks ago
Ethan · 830 weeks ago
<a href="http://learnedonwomen.com/2009/04/marketing-womens-sports-to-men/" target="_blank">http://learnedonwomen.com/2009/04/marketing-women...
(Hope HTML code works in here.)