The year was 1996. The Spice Girls were No. 1 on the Billboard charts, and the Cowboys won their third Super Bowl in four seasons. And on April 24, the WNBA was born.
Twenty years later, the Spice Girls are a distant memory and the Cowboys have yet to win another Super Bowl. But the WNBA opens its 20th season May 14, still alive and well.
How well is the question.
When the WNBA began, it provided a platform for women to play basketball without having to go overseas. However, after two decades, it is still not considered the ideal option for female college basketball players looking to play professionally.
Daunted by few roster spots and low salaries, nearly 3,600 draft-eligible players a year forgo their U.S. pro dreams to play overseas or pursue a different career path, hurting the WNBA’s chances for growth and popularity.
“It’s every young basketball player’s dream to play professionally,” said basketball Hall of Famer Teresa Edwards, who both played and coached in the WNBA, the latter with the Dream. “If you know the history of women’s basketball, you know that it’s always great to be at home. What we need to do is be more marketable.”
The WNBA struggled in its first few years to get its finances, attendance and television ratings to match its level of talent. Today, with former Atlanta city councilwoman and Coca-Cola executive Lisa Borders as the new WNBA president, the trials continue, with the added issue of top college players often taking their talents elsewhere.
“This is the top league in the world,” said Renee Brown, the WNBA’s chief of basketball operations and player relations. “I think it starts at the national office, but it’s also about growing our teams at the local level and getting more fans in the stands.”
Last season, the WNBA’s attendance reached its lowest in league history. According to SportsBusiness Journal, the league averaged 7,318 fans per game, down from a high of 10,869 in the 1998 season.
The league also saw a significant drop in ratings in 2015. While 19 games aired on ESPN2 in 2014, only 10 showed on the network last year, with viewership dropping 14 percent on ESPN and ESPN2 combined.
Adding well-known college players to the roster can help attract fans. But for college players looking to play professionally, the chances of actually making it to the WNBA are slim. According to the NCAA, in 2013, there were 36 slots available in the WNBA draft. Of those 36 slots, 32 went to Division I players out of the 3,626 that were draft-eligible, which is 0.9 percent of all 16,319 participants.
On the other hand, 139 NCAA players of the 2013 draft cohort played internationally in 2014, all of which came from divisions I-III.
“The WNBA is very competitive, and they don’t have a lot of spots for players,” said Georgia senior forward Merritt Hempe, whose teammate, Shacobia Barbee, was the only UGA player taken in this year’s WNBA draft. “Then you can get cut from your team at any moment.”
There are 12 teams in the WNBA and 12 spots on each team. Of those 12 spots, only one or two will go to rookie players. This is also true of the NBA, but NBA teams outnumber the WNBA by 18, leading to more slots for male rookies.
Overseas, there are approximately 20 women’s basketball leagues in more than 18 countries. Each league includes six to 16 teams, offering many more roster spots than the WNBA.
“Young ladies are taking opportunities to play in both leagues mainly because financially, it’s definitely advantageous to go abroad and make more money than it is initially to join the WNBA,” said Edwards.
Unlike in the NBA, where a player can enter the draft after playing one college season, female players have to be at least 22 years old and have no remaining college eligibility to enter the WNBA draft.
“Maybe by the time they get to the WNBA, they’re no longer in their prime as someone who just finished playing as a freshman in men’s basketball,” UGA senior guard Marjorie Butler said.
Dream coach Michael Cooper, whose team opens its season May 14 at San Antonio, said the age limit is a positive for WNBA rather than a negative.
In the NBA, he said, there often are players who leave college, but are not yet able to play at the professional level. The WNBA’s age requirement protects the league from such setbacks.
“The NBA’s success is so great that they can afford those four, five players that aren’t any good,” said Cooper, who played for the Los Angeles Lakers. “But for us, we can’t do that when there’s only 12 teams.”
While some players debate between pursuing the WNBA or playing overseas, others often decide to put the ball down for good and enter a different career path altogether.
UGA’s Butler was named this year’s SEC Scholar-Athlete of the Year. An injury-filled career influenced the exercise science major to choose medical school over a pro basketball career.
“Growing up, I always thought that I would play professional basketball,” Butler said, “but my senior year in high school, I tore my ACL, and I’ve had three knee surgeries.”
With the WNBA not even being an option until age 22, a player with a college degree may look at the decision in a different way than someone who is younger, especially when presented with a crucial career opportunity.
“I think it just depends on where they are,” UGA coach Joni Taylor said. “Some players may have an option to start a career path that, if they chose to go overseas or go to the league two or three years from now, they may not have the same opportunity later.
While the WNBA struggles to attract new top U.S. college players with whom fans could connect, it may also have trouble retaining its top veterans. Diana Taurasi made headlines in 2015 when she sat out the WNBA season to play for the Russian Premier League.
The seven-time All-Star and two-time Finals MVP will be back in the WNBA this season, playing for the Phoenix Mercury.
“We definitely missed Diana Taurasi last year, and we embraced that’s what she wanted to do, but I thought that our fan base stayed steady,” the WNBA’s Brown said.
Taurasi’s decision was viewed by many as purely financial, as her U.S. salary of just below the league’s maximum salary of $107,000 could not compare with the $1.5 million she was offered to play in Russia.
Many WNBA players choose to play overseas when the WNBA is in its offseason, but Taurasi and her huge payout could potentially influence players to switch sides altogether.
“I don’t think that the young ladies make nearly the amount of money that it would take to call basketball a career here,” Edwards said. “As you progress in the league, you make more money, but overseas, the market is open, and you can negotiate your salary and get a lot more money upfront.”
In 2012, the average WNBA salary was $72,000, and the league minimum was $36,570, according to an ESPN report. For that same year overseas, a typical contract started at $40,000, with top players making about $600,000. Since there are few to no salary caps in international leagues, some players, such as Taurasi, could even make $1 million or more.
Cooper understands the financial disparities faced by WNBA athletes, but he believes the attention players receive in America is worth the pay cut.
“When you go overseas, you have to remember the mainstream basketball fans aren’t watching you unless they’re following you over the Internet,” Cooper said. “So although we don’t financially benefit the young ladies as much as they should, I think the things that they can do after their career is better for them with the WNBA.”
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