When the WBNA started up, I had the complete TV schedule programmed into my PDA so I wouldn’t miss a game 😉 I preferred the ABL, though, and attended the opening night game of the Richmond team. After a couple of years, the ABL folded, unable to compete with the WBNA and the resources of its backers.
Over the past few years, I really haven’t watched much of the WNBA. I got tired of seeing the Los Angeles Sparks play in almost every televised game. It was as if no other team – outside of the Houston Comets – existed. The hyping of the Sparks just kinda drove me to be anti-Sparks. And no one got more hype than Sparks center Lisa Leslie. Guess what that made me? One of the many anti-Leslie fans.
So when I saw a blurb in today’s paper that Leslie is pregnant and out for the season, my first reaction was that perhaps I should put the upcoming season’s TV schedule into my computer 🙂 (I don’t carry a PDA anymore.)
Included in the blurb in the Pilot was a bit about the Sparks being sold. As it turns out, two season ticket holders put together an investment group and bought the team for $10 million. This makes the Sparks the fourth WNBA team to have ownership independent of the NBA.
Perhaps it is because of the summer schedule, but the WNBA has never been as successful as it should have been. There have been some wonderful players in the league – too numerous to name, actually – and the way the game is played should appeal to the basketball purists. But perhaps running and dunking is all that people think basketball should be.
In any event, I see a season without Leslie as a way to garner new fans and re-energize the old ones. I’m looking forward to the season.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
I like the WNBA because it has allowed so many of our former ODU players an opportunity to go beyond college basketball up to another level. I’ve enjoyed following their careers at that level both as players and coaches. It is a shame that most female basketball players have to go overseas to continue their sport after college. The WNBA does give them the opportunity to stay in the USA and continue playing their sport. None of them are getting paid nowhere the salary range that their male counterparts make though. I haven’t really picked a specific team as such, but follow and cheer for all with former ODU players in whatever capacity on the team. I don’t follow any other professional sports because I feel that most of the male players are egocentric, make far too munch money, and have let whatever success they have go to their heads. I used to like to watch the Sparks play, not to see Lisa Leslie, but to see her substitute, former ODU center Clarisse Masanguana! It’s nice to see the impact that ODU basketball has had on this league as our former players continue to weave their way through the WNBA.