WNBA owner says Dream can make money

Kathy Betty won’t talk about what she found when digging through the financials of the Atlanta Dream before she decided to buy the WNBA team from businessman Ron Terwilliger last month. But she’s convinced a professional women’s sports team can make money over time. She also knows what her so-called “worst nightmare” is, should ticket sales, sponsorships and other business deals not go through.

Betty, widow of former EarthLink CEO Garry Betty, grew up watching and playing sports and was one of the first women partners at Ernst & Young. She considers Atlanta a “great market” for women’s sports.

“If we have a good marketplace and we have a good team that wins, to me there should be a business model that works,” she said. “As I get more and more experienced, I may come back and say, ‘You can’t,’ but I’m going into it thinking that you can.” AJC.com sat down with Betty to discuss how she's going to run a lower-profile team in the midst of a struggling economy.

Q: How involved will you be with the team from sports standpoint? There's the Ted Turner way – the man once put on a Braves uniform and sat in the dugout. And then there's a Liberty Media way – hands off, barely acknowledging involvement.

A: The chief operating officer I will bring in will be very experienced in sports management. That's a very critical hire for me.

[I can] be very active in going out in the community and working on sponsorships. I’m trying to put together a compelling case why business leaders should sponsor the Atlanta Dream. I will continue to be very accessible to not only our team but also to our front office. I’ll do speeches, I’ll get on the phone and call season ticket holders.

Q: Atlanta sports fans have the reputation of being jaded – only supporting winning teams, and even then, sometimes that's not the case. Average attendance at Dream games even dropped by 1,000 – to 7,500 – during its sophomore year when the team was winning and going to the playoffs. What makes you think people are going to start going to Dream games now?

A: We have to win. We have to provide a good game experience for people who come to our games.  We're keeping it simple right now: what we do needs to increase ticket sales, needs to increase sponsorships and needs to help the team win.

We play to win, and we dream to make a difference. It is about making a difference; that’s a huge part of this.  Our basketball team wants to be out in the community.

Q: What's your view of the WNBA? Does the league need to expand, or should it pull back and focus efforts only on its core base of solid teams?

A: Over time they need to expand.  We have a good core of teams now: 13 teams; six are still owned by the NBA.  When (the league) first started, you wouldn't find a WNBA team in a non-NBA city.

David Stern is a very big supporter of the WNBA. I met with him a couple of weeks ago right after I bought the team. He was engaging. But we still need to evolve over time.

Q: Have you attended WNBA games? How many?

A: I had season tickets to the Dream; I was one of the original ticket holders. Remember, I did lose my husband, so my activities have been a little different. Part of this is so exciting because it's what Garry and I would have dreamed of doing. These are the kinds of things we would have liked to have done when we retired.

Q: Did you play sports growing up? What did your teammates say about you?

A: I grew up in Decatur, Ala. Women couldn't play sports in Decatur, Ala.

I was playing golf at 4 years old. I had one sister. We had a basketball goal. We had a baseball diamond cut out in our yard.