I watched a YouTube video awhile back of a mixed-4×400 meter relay in a recent track and field championship where the difference between male and female athletes was demonstrated.
A “mixed” event means that the four-person team is half men and half women. Each competitor runs 400 meters (once around a track). In this race, one team used two of their men and one of their women on the first three legs of the race and built up an enormous lead on the other seven teams. They finished the race with a woman, a very good 400-meter runner, who inherited a 40-meter lead over the nearest competitor and perhaps a 60-meter lead over the other runners.
The other 7 teams finished with male runners… who all eventually passed the woman runner in those final 400 meters. She gave it all she had but came in dead last.
The moral of the story: the men runners were bigger and stronger.
Nothing new here. With everything else being equal (ability, training, drive), a championship-level female runner will be about 10 percent slower than her male counterpart. It’s biology, having to do with size and muscle mass.
I’ve recently seen some YouTube videos concerning the WNBA, which is the women’s professional basketball league in the United States. The league has been in existence for 27 seasons and showcases the best 144 women players on 12 teams. Each team plays a 40-game schedule.
I played varsity basketball in high school, so I know the game a bit. I used to follow the NBA (the men’s professional league) to some degree; I was/am a Laker fan. However, I’ve only attended a couple of NBA games in my life, and I watch very little basketball on TV anymore. Why? Because the men’s professional game has morphed from pure basketball into “entertainment”. Fundamentals (like passing, setting screens, getting position for rebounds, playing defense, involving all five players in the offense, etc.) have been replaced by flashy entertainment, including palming the ball, traveling, half-assed defense, and ball-hogging. More often than not, the modern half-court offense consists of four teammates getting out of the way so that the fifth guy can put on a one-man show concluding with a 30’ shot or a slam dunk.
In my opinion, what was once a highly competitive sport has become boring entertainment. Players get paid huge dollars to put out minimum effort, and they get paid whether they play or not. Even still, NBA teams draw big crowds (average 18,000 per game) and draw large TV audiences.
It’s kind of like “professional” wrestling, where there’s not much wrestling going on, the opponents set each other up for impressive body slams, folding chairs are used as weapons, and the big stars wear costumes and make up. It’s a theatrical performance, not an athletic event… which is popular in redneck country.
As the saying goes, “The customer is always right!”
The male chauvinist that I suppose I am, I’ve always looked down my nose at women’s professional basketball. The players are smaller than their NBA counterparts, not as athletic, and physically can’t dunk the ball. My impression (gained a couple of decades ago), was that a good high school boys’ team could beat an WNBA team.
That may still be the case. However, I will have to admit that women’s basketball has made great strides in the past decade. There are now some pretty good players in the WNBA, and the women put on a fundamentally better game than their male NBA counterparts. And some of the WNBA stars are very good. For example, in a recent NBA All-Star Game exhibition, a WNBA star (Sabrina Ionescu) competed in a 3-point shooting contest (timed but undefended) with NBA legend Steph Curry and almost beat him.
That was an eye-opener, for sure. Of course, Curry can make 30+’ shots all day long with 6’6” guys hanging all over him. Ionescu is 5’11” tall, so Ionescu would be hard-pressed to get open and score against an NBA defender who would be bigger, stronger, quicker, taller, and have a longer reach.
Most WNBA players can’t make 3-point shots like Ionescu. In fact, of the games that I’ve seen, most of the scoring involves lay-ups or tip-ins when there is a scrum around the basket. Slam dunks are as rare as hen’s teeth: only a dozen in 27 years.
The WNBA has been subsidized by the NBA ever since its beginning in 1997. In other words, the WNBA loses money. However, its revenues have been increasing in recent years. Attendance is rising and sponsorship is, as well. There is hope that this business model will ultimately succeed; after all, online business started off slowly, but is now a worldwide juggernaut.
What will it take to take the WNBA business model to the next level?
Probably more “stars” that fans can get excited about. There aren’t many famous WNBA players, to be honest. The player with the most name recognition is probably Brittney Griner, a 6’9” center who plays for the Phoenix Mercury. She’s a two-time Olympic gold medalist and a six-time WNBA All Star. However, she is most famous for being arrested in Russia on drug charges. This is not the kind of notoriety that the WNBA needs.
Griner is also a lesbian, which turns off a gaggle of potential fans. In fact, about 1/3 of WNBA players are publicly acknowledged LBGTQ. The reality is that, in today’s charged political climate, many people refuse to LBGTQ-friendly businesses. It’s unfair, but it is what it is.
There is some light at the end of the WNBA tunnel, so to speak, with the emergence of a very popular college player named Caitlin Clark. She is the all-time college scoring champ and a two-time Player of the Year. Plus she’s White, which could help attract viewers who object to all the Black players in the WNBA (70 percent).
Caitlin Clark has the potential to become the Tiger Woods of the WNBA, i.e. the “face” of women’s professional basketball. It will be interesting to see how the NBA/WNBA partnership capitalizes on Clark’s notoriety.
The other thing that the WNBA needs to do is to make their game more exciting.
As mentioned earlier, very few female basketball professionals have dunked in the league. The dunk is very popular with rabid basketball fans; video of superstars “posterizing” defenders is included in virtually all NBA highlight shows each evening on TV. Conversely, WNBA action is bereft of such excitement, leaving sportscasters to yawn over the multitude of boring lay-ups, tip-ins, and air-balls.
There has been talk for many years about lowering the height of the basket from 10’ (which is the standard in both the WNBA and NBA) to 9’ or 9’6”. This makes a lot of sense, as WNBA players average 6’ in height compared to the 6’6” of NBA players. Not only are the NBA players taller, but they have a reach that is, on the average, more than 3” longer than their women counterparts. And, to add insult to injury, an NBA player’s average vertical jump is something like 4 inches higher. Putting that together, 6 inches more height, 3 inches more reach, and 4 inches more jumping ability… that’s a 13” advantage for the men.
Dropping the height of the basket by 12 inches would equal the playing field, at least in the matter of dunking. It’s almost a “no brainer”. And, with this change, women’s professional basketball would become, instantaneously, more entertaining.
Hard to believe but… most WNBA players appear to be solidly against this change, as it would (to them) be admitting that their game is inferior to, or less exciting, than the men’s game.
As the saying goes, “Pride cometh before the fall.”
The same WNBA players who are so adamant about the standard 10’ basket height are also the outspoken players who complain that they are not being paid adequately. The pay disparity between NBA and WNBA players is, admittedly enormous, but so is the revenue gap between the leagues. The WNBA loses money, while the NBA is a gold mine. And thank goodness for that, as this allows the NBA to subsidize the women’s league, keeping these WNBA stars from the unemployment lines.
The WNBA, in order to succeed, needs to become more exciting. People don’t pay to attend (or watch on TV) fundamentally sound high school basketball, which is akin to the WNBA product. I think that adding the potential for women to dunk the basketball would be the “shot in the arm” that the league needs to excite fans and grow the sport. Perhaps the WNBA would create its own Michael Jordan… who was famous for his flamboyant dunks.
More excitement equals more fans and more exposure, resulting in higher ticket sales, more merchandise sales, better TV exposure, and increased corporate sponsorship, thus providing better pay for the WNBA players.
Why not?