NBA v WNBA (The Fight For The Winning Lay-Up)

NBA v. WNBA

The sports industry is something that was always branded by the face of men for a long period of time. It was hard for women to come into this industry without issues pertaining to gender roles and the segregation between men and women. From this the WNBA was created which is the Women’s National Basketball Association. The identity of basketball has always been attached to the specimen of a male. The NBA was originally founded in the 1946 and 50 years later in 1996 the WNBA was founded. This means that the NBA is way older than the WNBA which made the sport of basketball molded in the image of just being a male’s sport. Women are trying to gain their own identity in the basketball industry which is very hard due to them using a male’s face of sport to boost their identity and wanting everyone to be supportive and acceptable to this.

The WNBA are still fighting to be viable in the society of sports. In areas like attendance of fans. The WNBA averages 7,318 fans in attendance to games whereas to the NBA, they average 17,319 in game attendance. New York Times explored the viewing WNBA games and have made observation stating: “But as its 20th season gets underway, the W.N.B.A.’s modest attendance and television viewership (just below 200,000 on ESPN’s networks last season) illuminate a stubborn imbalance between men’s and women’s professional leagues, adding to the expanding debate about the place of women’s sports in society.” The emphasis of gender identity is something that is still being put into place by woman in sports and also the players in the WNBA. One of the founders Adam Silver, which is now the NBA's commissioner quotes: “As much as we’ve done in lending the league our name,” he said, “the people who have been in the sports business for a long time, and I’m one of them, historically underestimated the marketing it takes to launch a new property.” This quote gave much insight on the understanding of how the WNBA are underestimated and they are not holding the fans attention into helping them create the identity of basketball.  Even down to the salaries there is a major gap between the NBA and WNBA. The average NBA salary is $4.9 million whereas to the WNBA their salary averages to $72,000. That is no way near how much NBA players make. They would make over $1.5 million dollars overseas which is 15 times as much as they make now. WNBA players like Maya Moore, Skylar Diggins, and Swin Cash gain more money due to the endorsement they receive with many sports brands like nike, under armour, etc. The endorsements do not endorse all WNBA players which has many WNBA players questioned on to who they are and others not even knowing who they are. I asked several people in the SLA community, my family, and my friends if they could at least name three WNBA players off of the top of their head and same for the NBA. There was much hesitation to even name at least three WNBA players but when it came to the NBA, that was very natural off of the tongue. This ensures me off the identity of basketball and how us as a society are very informative with the NBA and knew players immediately when asked, but as for the WNBA it is very hard to even name at least one player or one team.

The identity of a woman is seen mostly with dance, the fashion industry, and also makeup and beauty. At a young age, I was not very interested in those things while growing up. I was like the tomboy/ a little girly type of girl. I was very sporty and involved with sports. In the fifth grade, I found my passion for basketball. I started out just learning how to even make one lay-up to now starting for my high school's basketball team. My inspiration to play has came from the WNBA and watching my favorite players like: Skylar Diggins, Maya Moore, and Elena Delle Donne. I became very attracted to watching the WNBA , but I found myself like society attending to watching more NBA than WNBA. I really don’t why it have dawned on me to do this especially because I am female that plays basketball. “Nobody discusses the WNBA. Nobody seems especially interested in the WNBA. If a basketball league falls in the summer and nobody cares, is it still a basketball league?”... Jeff Pearlman.

Bibliography:

Sandomir, Richard. "After Two Decades, WNBA Still Struggling For Relevance." The New York Times, 28 May 2016. Web. 19 Jan. 2017.

<https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/28/sports/basketball/after-two-decades-wnba-still-struggling-for-relevance.html?_r=0>.

Pearlman, Jeff. "Why the WNBA Isn't -- and Will Never Be -- a Popular League." SI.com. Sports Illustrated, 16 June 2010. Web. 19 Jan. 2017. <http://www.si.com/nba/2010/06/16/wnba>.