Washington moving to 20,356 seat arena to accommodate Caitlin. Las Vegas moving to 18,000 seat arena. Atlanta moving to 17,000 seat arena
- Thread starter Franisdaman
- Start date
There is now too much talent versus number of slots to play in the WNBA. They really need to add 2 teams to the league with a goal of 4 teams in 10 years. I've heard some rumblings about this but nothing really serious. I guess they will want to wait for the numbers to actually show up before expanding versus projecting growth only to not see it happen.
IIRC, there are only 144 jobs available (12 roster spots x 12 team)
and it doesn't help when players like Diana Taurasi never retire
Diana turns 42 on June 11.
And how many times have teams moved to bigger arenas to accommodate the gatherings these "stars" attract? Asking for a friend.
normally they move to smaller arenas to create a more cozy environment
That roster of players for the Aces game is nuts. Those are big names all playing together. Clark is going to have her work cut out for her in her rookie season. I bet the top WNBA players are salivating at the chance to show Clark what the top level of basketball is like.
Crazy to act like CC is going to crumble in the WNBA, but then turn around and advertise her not even 24 hours after her college career is over. They really do need her and they hate to admit it.
This may deserve a thread on its own.
It's hard for me to wrap my head around this. She really is the Tiger Woods on women's basketball!
I hope CC22 makes Taurasi look like a fool and drop 40 on her.
I think the Fever will at least have a big 3 with Caitlin.
The other 2 and their averages last season:
ALIYAH BOSTON......6'5, 22 years old.....14.5 pts, 8.4 reb, 2.2 assts
KELSEY MITCHELL...5'8, 28 years old.....18.2 pts, 1.6 rebs, 3.1 assts
They are adding one team next year in San Francisco, with another one likely to keep it even.
The WNBA will expand to the San Francisco Bay Area in the 2025 season, the league announced Thursday. The team will begin play in 2025.
The NBA's Golden State Warriors co-owners Joe Lacob and Peter Guber will own and operate the WNBA franchise. The team will play at the Chase Center in San Francisco and use the Warriors' Oakland Facility as its headquarters. The Warriors used that facility until 2019 as a practice facility and front office.
Lacob declared the new Golden State team would "win a championship in the next five years" during the news conference at Chase Center on Thursday. He also said they have not decided on a team name, but nothing had been ruled out yet.
Engelbert said Thursday she expects a 14th team to be added to the league by 2025. She mentioned several cities by name that have shown interest in an expansion team, including Sacramento, Portland, Denver, Toronto and Philadelphia.
It is the first team to enter the league since 2008, when the Atlanta Dream joined. The WNBA is concluding its 27th season with a Finals between the New York Liberty and Las Vegas Aces set to tip off Sunday. They are two of the four remaining inaugural franchises (the Aces began as the Utah Starzz). Northern California had one of the inaugural eight teams, but the Sacramento Monarchs folded after the 2009 season, four years after winning their only championship.
Expansion has been on the league’s docket for years and WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert has been asked for updates regularly during her tenure, which began in late 2019. The Bay Area would be the 13th team, and the league said it is talking to other potential ownership groups about expansion in other cities. Engelbert has visited Portland, Denver and Toronto to meet with interested parties.
The Athletic first reported last week the NBA’s Golden State Warriors were close to bringing a team to the Bay Area, but the deal was not finalized. The WNBA social media account stirred more speculation this week when it began quote-tweeting calls for expansion. It hinted toward an announcement with a message Wednesday morning.
Interest in women’s sports continues to rise with higher viewership, attendance and more TV spots in prime windows. The Liberty’s Game 4 win over the Connecticut Sun on ABC on Sunday peaked at nearly 1 million viewers in a TV window that coincided with the NFL’s late afternoon games.
WNBA’s expansion timeline
Expansion has been a moving target for the WNBA as the league office went through data analysis of 100 potential cities, Engelbert has said. It included analysis of NCAA women’s tournament viewership, WNBA viewership, demographics, psychographics, merchandise sales, Fortune 500 companies and arena sites. Engelbert said they are “great indicators of how [a franchise] would get supported if a WNBA team were to go in that market.”At her 2021 WNBA Draft state-of-the-league address, Engelbert said expansion is on the league’s list of things “down the road” and they would “probably have a much more developed answer” if not for the pandemic and in-person fan limitations due to it.
Engelbert has stressed in the years since that they wanted to be cautious about any expansion teams and not jeopardize the financial health of the league. She has long targeted introducing two teams. The league is divided into Western and Eastern Conferences that are used for the Commissioner’s Cup competition format. The playoffs are based on overall team standings no matter the conference.
The short list began at around 10-15 teams in June 2022, and Engelbert told The Athletic she wanted them in by 2024. The shortlist number jumped to 20 cities as recently as an interview she did in May, and she reiterated to reporters at the Los Angeles Sparks’ opening game she was targeting 2025 now.
“The first thing when I came in, I said, ‘OK, we have 12 teams in a country of over 300 million people. That is not enough,’” Engelbert said. “So that’s why we do talk about expansion, and you have to be in more cities to grow more fandom.”
In 2022, Engelbert told reporters the league planned to make an announcement by the end of the year. That target came and went. In February, she said expansion remained “two to four years out,” and they were “not in a rush.” Throughout the year, she’s made trips to cities to meet with potential ownership groups.
At July's All-Star Game in Las Vegas, she again teased an end-of-season announcement.
“Our conversations with potential ownership groups are headed in the right direction, and we will have some more news to announce about that at a later date this season,” she said.
While the WNBA analyzed possibilities, the NWSL added four teams, including a Bay FC club formally announced in April 2023. NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman, who was named to the job in March 2022, told the Washington Post that by 2026, the league will expand to 16 teams. It would double the size of its 2012 league.
WNBA announces long-awaited expansion team in Bay Area, beginning play in 2025
The WNBA will expand to the San Francisco Bay Area in the 2025 season, the league announced Thursday. The team will begin play in 2025.
sports.yahoo.com
I'm a Greeny fan as well. This is a pretty good comparison as she brought plenty of new eyes onto her sport.
They should really turn a profit before adding more teams.
Bingo. The league will get a nice bump from the CC hype but it's not going to blow up in a sustainable way.
They are adding one team next year in San Francisco, with another one likely to keep it even.
The WNBA will expand to the San Francisco Bay Area in the 2025 season, the league announced Thursday. The team will begin play in 2025.
The NBA's Golden State Warriors co-owners Joe Lacob and Peter Guber will own and operate the WNBA franchise. The team will play at the Chase Center in San Francisco and use the Warriors' Oakland Facility as its headquarters. The Warriors used that facility until 2019 as a practice facility and front office.
Lacob declared the new Golden State team would "win a championship in the next five years" during the news conference at Chase Center on Thursday. He also said they have not decided on a team name, but nothing had been ruled out yet.
Engelbert said Thursday she expects a 14th team to be added to the league by 2025. She mentioned several cities by name that have shown interest in an expansion team, including Sacramento, Portland, Denver, Toronto and Philadelphia.
It is the first team to enter the league since 2008, when the Atlanta Dream joined. The WNBA is concluding its 27th season with a Finals between the New York Liberty and Las Vegas Aces set to tip off Sunday. They are two of the four remaining inaugural franchises (the Aces began as the Utah Starzz). Northern California had one of the inaugural eight teams, but the Sacramento Monarchs folded after the 2009 season, four years after winning their only championship.
Expansion has been on the league’s docket for years and WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert has been asked for updates regularly during her tenure, which began in late 2019. The Bay Area would be the 13th team, and the league said it is talking to other potential ownership groups about expansion in other cities. Engelbert has visited Portland, Denver and Toronto to meet with interested parties.
The Athletic first reported last week the NBA’s Golden State Warriors were close to bringing a team to the Bay Area, but the deal was not finalized. The WNBA social media account stirred more speculation this week when it began quote-tweeting calls for expansion. It hinted toward an announcement with a message Wednesday morning.
Interest in women’s sports continues to rise with higher viewership, attendance and more TV spots in prime windows. The Liberty’s Game 4 win over the Connecticut Sun on ABC on Sunday peaked at nearly 1 million viewers in a TV window that coincided with the NFL’s late afternoon games.
WNBA’s expansion timeline
Expansion has been a moving target for the WNBA as the league office went through data analysis of 100 potential cities, Engelbert has said. It included analysis of NCAA women’s tournament viewership, WNBA viewership, demographics, psychographics, merchandise sales, Fortune 500 companies and arena sites. Engelbert said they are “great indicators of how [a franchise] would get supported if a WNBA team were to go in that market.”
At her 2021 WNBA Draft state-of-the-league address, Engelbert said expansion is on the league’s list of things “down the road” and they would “probably have a much more developed answer” if not for the pandemic and in-person fan limitations due to it.
Engelbert has stressed in the years since that they wanted to be cautious about any expansion teams and not jeopardize the financial health of the league. She has long targeted introducing two teams. The league is divided into Western and Eastern Conferences that are used for the Commissioner’s Cup competition format. The playoffs are based on overall team standings no matter the conference.
The short list began at around 10-15 teams in June 2022, and Engelbert told The Athletic she wanted them in by 2024. The shortlist number jumped to 20 cities as recently as an interview she did in May, and she reiterated to reporters at the Los Angeles Sparks’ opening game she was targeting 2025 now.
“The first thing when I came in, I said, ‘OK, we have 12 teams in a country of over 300 million people. That is not enough,’” Engelbert said. “So that’s why we do talk about expansion, and you have to be in more cities to grow more fandom.”
In 2022, Engelbert told reporters the league planned to make an announcement by the end of the year. That target came and went. In February, she said expansion remained “two to four years out,” and they were “not in a rush.” Throughout the year, she’s made trips to cities to meet with potential ownership groups.
At July's All-Star Game in Las Vegas, she again teased an end-of-season announcement.
“Our conversations with potential ownership groups are headed in the right direction, and we will have some more news to announce about that at a later date this season,” she said.
While the WNBA analyzed possibilities, the NWSL added four teams, including a Bay FC club formally announced in April 2023. NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman, who was named to the job in March 2022, told the Washington Post that by 2026, the league will expand to 16 teams. It would double the size of its 2012 league.
WNBA announces long-awaited expansion team in Bay Area, beginning play in 2025
The WNBA will expand to the San Francisco Bay Area in the 2025 season, the league announced Thursday. The team will begin play in 2025.
how will the players be able to afford living in San Francisco?
speaking of eyeballs, look at how viewership of the National Championship game changed over the last 2 years:
Why? How do you grow if you don't invest?
They'll retain some, but not most. The CC phenom drew in a lot of non-traditional bball fans. Now that the record chase is over, many of them will go away or find the next personality that blows up. The attendance at her games was crazy...but for most teams it was business as usual.
CC will be a good pro and the Fever are going to sell a shit ton of CC jerseys this Summer, but she's not going to run circles around people like she did in college. Sure the WNBA will bounce a bit (it needs to, attendance has been on the decline for 20 years). But the last 18 months are not going to be duplicated in the WNBA or WCBB.
CC will be a good pro and the Fever are going to sell a shit ton of CC jerseys this Summer, but she's not going to run circles around people like she did in college. Sure the WNBA will bounce a bit (it needs to, attendance has been on the decline for 20 years). But the last 18 months are not going to be duplicated in the WNBA or WCBB.
Last edited:
But if your current college stars can't land a spot in the league, you aren't going to grow a fan base. DT is a great player, but nobody under the age of 30 remembers her in college. How many Iowa fans were ready to become Dallas fans when they drafted Megan G, and she got cut and has been bouncing around the league since then. You need an opportunity for these players to play once they get out of college and you will have younger people take an interest in your league to follow their college favorites. I don't know if they will just stick with two new teams but expanding to 16 would give you two conferences of 8 and 48 new roster spots. There is a lot of great talent in the college game right now that could fill those spots.
Problem is, those that have the spots are looking out for themselves and not the growth of the game.
Kelsey Plum, the WNBA Players Association vice president, said at All-Star weekend she did not believe team expansion should come before other more pressing issues for players’ health and safety.
“I don’t think that should take precedence over charter flights. I don’t think that should take precedence over salary benefits,” Plum said. “And I think that we’ve taken steps in the right direction, but I think if you were to poll the players right now and ask them, ‘Would you rather have expansion or charter?’ I think it’s [a] pretty clear consensus across the board.”
Players have made renewed calls this season for league-wide charter flights. WNBA teams fly commercially as per the collective bargaining agreement signed in January 2020. All postseason teams have flown charter, which is new this year. An expansion team in Toronto would create travel headaches going through customs on commercial airlines.
Travel could be more troublesome next year when the league, which expanded to 40 games this season, fits its regular and postseason schedule around the 2024 Paris Olympics, July 26 - Aug. 11. Engelbert has seemed inclined to wait for a new media rights deal, which would come after 2025, before the league opens up charter flights for all teams all season.
Players are also concerned with salaries, which took a jump of nearly 100% with the new CBA in 2020, but max out at around $225,000. Players, such as those on the super-team Aces and Liberty, have increasingly been taking less money to keep talent around them and compete for titles.
The Aces were also investigated for circumventing the salary cap in the offseason. Players, such as Plum, are looking for better revenue sharing and not equal salaries to their NBA counterparts.
Well, if a business has never turned a profit in 27 years, would you invest in it?
The GSW organization thinks it's a good investment. Would it just be better if they contract or fold? Maybe CC joining a 4 team league would be better for profitability. Shouldn't the Aces just keep playing at their smaller arena until they turn a profit?
I guess they can do what ever as long as the NBA keeps writing those checks every year.
LOL.....no direct mention of Caitlin by name....
Weird that they are only moving the Fever game to a bigger arena
Weird that they are only moving the Fever game to a bigger arena
Maybe Scott should find out how many times opposing teams have moved to bigger arenas in order to acommodate all those "stars" before Caitlin Clark came along. LOL
2023 WNBA Regular Season Average Attendance:
#1 Las Vegas Aces:.........................9,551 (moving to 20,000 seat arena for Caitlin)
#10 Washington Mystics..............4,391 (moving to 20,356 seat arena for Caitlin)
#11 Indiana Fever:..........................4,067
#12 (dead last) Atlanta Dream:...3,006
WNBA average attendance by team 2023 | Statista
What is the average attendance in the WNBA? In team rankings, the Las Vegas Aces drew the highest average crowds, totaling over nine and a half thousand.
www.statista.com
Last edited:
Last season was the most watched season in 21 years? Not sure about that. (for the Mystics it was one of their worst). Bounced back from COVID but the league badly needs a bounce. CC can only be in one arena per game...let's see what happens around the rest of the league.LOL.....no direct mention of Caitlin by name....
Weird that they are only moving the Fever game to a bigger arena
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1236737/wnba-average-attendance/
https://www.acrossthetimeline.com/wnba/attendance.html#
Last edited:
I guess the upshot is that with only 12 teams, 1/6 of the regular season games will enjoy a direct Caitlin affect.
I know it won't happen but imagine a WNBA team in Des Moines with Caitlin on it.
There at least needs to be a WNBA preseason game with Indiana in Des Moines
I've thought about that too. The game will sell out in a matter of minutes.
