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WNBA fans to NBA or NBA fans to WNBA?

 
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hoopladreams



Joined: 19 Sep 2005
Posts: 271
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PostPosted: 10/30/05 8:55 am    ::: WNBA fans to NBA or NBA fans to WNBA? Reply Reply with quote

Ok, this is just a general question going out to the individuals on this board that are fans of both the NBA and WNBA...

One of the reasons that is often given for why David Stern continues to support the WNBA is because the WNBA will get a different group of people interested in basketball and will in turn bring in more NBA fans. Has this strategy worked on anyone here? IOW, were you a fan of the WNBA first and then that led into you following the NBA?

If anything, I would say the opposite is true. There's a better chance that NBA fans would suddenly fall in love with the WNBA than there is that WNBA fans, who have ignored the NBA for almost 60 years, would suddenly fall in love with NBA basketball.

If that's really a strategy that Stern is using, I don't think its a good one...unless of course that tactic has actually worked on someone...


hoopladreams



Joined: 19 Sep 2005
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PostPosted: 10/30/05 9:05 am    ::: Reply Reply with quote

For me personally, I started out an NBA fan (growing up in Chicagoland during the 80's and 90's will do that to you Very Happy ). I followed the WNBA a bit in the early years, and I was happy that there was finally an "NBA for women," but I was definitely one of those people that viewed WNBA basketball as far inferior to NBA basketball.

The catalyst for my blossoming WNBA fandom wasn't the NBA, but women's college basketball. I fell in love with women's basketball watching Tamika Catchings at Tennessee and Tauja Catchings and Katie Coleman at Illinois. Then of course I fell in love with the Fever. Then I fell in love with the entire league.

That was it. The NBA had nothing to do with it. If anything, the more I like the WNBA, the less I like the NBA.

I just don't understand the logic that WNBA fans are just future NBA fans.


hyperetic



Joined: 11 Oct 2005
Posts: 5344
Location: Fayetteville


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PostPosted: 10/30/05 1:00 pm    ::: fandom: men's game vs women's game Reply Reply with quote

Well for me personally it was NBA>WNBA. I started watching the NBA way before I knew anything about the WNBA. I have always thought there should be one because there were some girls in my high school that could flat out hoop. Superb ballhandlers, aggressive to the hoop, good defenders. I always thought it was unfair that they did not have that lofty goal to aspire to. (In the W that I envisioned they would be getting paid on the same level as the guys too.) In a separate daydream/wish I envisioned women playing alongside men in the NBA.
As far as the strategy to get more NBA fans by using the WNBA, I think it wouldn't be a well thought out strategy. From what I have witnessed in life and on this board is that women's basketball fans are fiercely loyal to women's basketball. Those that are also men's basketball fans came over from the men's game first. I am not saying it couldn't happen. I just think that it is more often Men's>Women's rather than vice versa.
bballfan2005



Joined: 22 Aug 2005
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PostPosted: 10/30/05 2:53 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

I followed the NBA first since the WNBA wasn't around in the late 80s/early 90s (when I became aware of basketball). I can remember sitting in my room watching the 1995 NBA Finals wondering why there wasn't an "NBA for Women". Two years later, the WNBA played their first game, and I was hooked from that moment on.



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hyperetic



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PostPosted: 10/30/05 10:06 pm    ::: lol Reply Reply with quote

Well I am a tad longer in the tooth. I came into basketball consciousness in the 70's with Dr. J, Iceman Gervin, Earl the Pearl and so forth. Still it just didn't seem right that so talented a players as they were could not reap the benefits as their male counterparts could.
Queenie



Joined: 18 Nov 2004
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PostPosted: 10/31/05 6:47 am    ::: Reply Reply with quote

I did it backwards. Sort of.

I started my life as a sports fan rooting for the Liberty. Somehow, that turned me into a five-sport junkie. Yeah, I watch the NBA... for my winter hoops fix, the same reason why I watch college ball, the occasional high school game, and pickup games on the asphalt.

But for in-game experience, the Knicks have nothing on the Liberty. I've been to a Knick game. Never again.



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hoopladreams



Joined: 19 Sep 2005
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PostPosted: 10/31/05 9:34 am    ::: Reply Reply with quote

Queenie wrote:
I did it backwards. Sort of.

I started my life as a sports fan rooting for the Liberty. Somehow, that turned me into a five-sport junkie. Yeah, I watch the NBA... for my winter hoops fix, the same reason why I watch college ball, the occasional high school game, and pickup games on the asphalt.

But for in-game experience, the Knicks have nothing on the Liberty. I've been to a Knick game. Never again.


I guess its safe to say then, that David Stern's marketing tactics worked on you? Cool Very Happy


hoopladreams



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PostPosted: 10/31/05 9:42 am    ::: Re: fandom: men's game vs women's game Reply Reply with quote

hyperetic wrote:
In a separate daydream/wish I envisioned women playing alongside men in the NBA.


Yeah, I had that dream too when I was a kid Very Happy

But now that I think back on it, I think that its really weird that back in the early 90's when I was about 10 yeas old or so, I never really even considered the prospect of having a women's professional baskeball league in the United States. I always thought that the ONLY way for a woman to be able to play pro ball in the US was to play in the NBA.

I guess that's because I didn't know of ANY professional women's sports leagues in this country at the time. The ABL didn't exist and WUSA didn't exist and I wasn't even alive during the time of the Chicago Hustle, so yeah, a women's NBA was never even a dream for me becasue the idea had never even been introduced to my consciousness. How sad is that!


BCBG25



Joined: 23 Sep 2004
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PostPosted: 10/31/05 11:10 am    ::: Reply Reply with quote

Queenie wrote:
I did it backwards. Sort of.

I started my life as a sports fan rooting for the Liberty. Somehow, that turned me into a five-sport junkie. Yeah, I watch the NBA... for my winter hoops fix, the same reason why I watch college ball, the occasional high school game, and pickup games on the asphalt.

But for in-game experience, the Knicks have nothing on the Liberty. I've been to a Knick game. Never again.


I've been to several. Knicks games suck unless they are playing a good team. Fans are obnoxious, Philly-like, and I've also been to several Sixers games. Knicks fans are the worst. I think I would be mad too if I had to pay 200 bucks for a so-so seat to watch that crap.



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Queenie



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PostPosted: 10/31/05 11:17 am    ::: Reply Reply with quote

BCBG25 wrote:
Queenie wrote:
I did it backwards. Sort of.

I started my life as a sports fan rooting for the Liberty. Somehow, that turned me into a five-sport junkie. Yeah, I watch the NBA... for my winter hoops fix, the same reason why I watch college ball, the occasional high school game, and pickup games on the asphalt.

But for in-game experience, the Knicks have nothing on the Liberty. I've been to a Knick game. Never again.


I've been to several. Knicks games suck unless they are playing a good team. Fans are obnoxious, Philly-like, and I've also been to several Sixers games. Knicks fans are the worst. I think I would be mad too if I had to pay 200 bucks for a so-so seat to watch that crap.


F'real. Mom spent three times the price of our Liberty tickets (in 210) to sit in 410 and watch the Knicks suck. And this was against the T-Wolves, mind you, not a bad team at all. But it was some of the little things that bothered me, not just the craptacular seats or the creepy drunks around us. I'm used to getting a roster so I can figure out who the hell everyone is, or being low enough to read the names on the jerseys. I couldn't at this game, and I didn't know who half the guys were. It also sounded deader and ruder than even the last couple of Liberty seasons. I'd rather be at a college game... hell, I'd rather be in the sub-basement of my school watching our D-III team.



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