When he takes off his sneakers for the last time as an NBA athlete LeBron James will deservedly be regarded as a first ballot Hall of Fame candidate with unanimous support. No matter how polarizing he is, James is both by virtue of his four championship titles with three franchises and his statistical rankings (3rd in points, 8th in assists) a talent that comes along once in a generation. I will not delve into the “Who’s the GOAT?” mental gymnastics concerning him, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, but at the very least James is the greatest basketball player still active.
All this aside, when he steps off the court LBJ has awful judgment in terms of his tackling of other non-hoops related activities. Forget his blatantly two-faced political “beliefs” that hold that “an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” while simultaneously laying an illegal screen against anyone within the NBA willing to criticize China. He’s been lit up ad nauseam for this by everyone. Or for his subsequent decision to take a courageous stand. . . for Goodyear Tires by defending their internal restrictions on employees having certain political beliefs.
To be clear, James is well within his rights to voice his political opinions. Just last year former Oakland Raiders safety Burgess Owens, a black conservative Mormon and Super Bowl champion, was elected to Congress from Utah. Many great athletes from Jim Brown to Curt Schilling have had very vocal political opinions. Unlike them however LeBron James invariably shows himself to be the type of shallow, self-important, attention addicted idiot that has alienated Americans from athletes and entertainers. Step outside of politics for a second: James in 2019 decided to attempt to trademark the term “Taco Tuesday” for marketing purposes, despite that phrase being already trademarked by restaurant chain Taco John. James was hoping to sell merchandise and accessories with the term, as he had started to go viral for goofy videos where he enthusiastically yells it while eating tacos with his kids. Funny, yes. Trademark eligible, no. James has also had notable cringe inducing moments such as when he claimed that voters in his home state of Ohio “wasn’t educated” when they voted for Donald Trump in 2016.
Escaping most media attention however has been a business decision that could potentially be the worst of his life: a stated intention to put together an ownership group for the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream. As with many of James’ impulse decisions, this one was motivated by his self-serving image of himself as a leading light in everything but his own craft as a basketball player. The only interest that James has in the Dream is owed to its current part owner Kelly Loeffler, who until recently was a Republican US Senator from Georgia. Loeffler has owned the Dream since 2010 along with Mary Brock when she was CEO of a financial service company. During the 2020 Black Lives Matter-related unrest, which included riots that devastated Atlanta, Loeffler called on the WNBA not to feature BLM messaging. In response players donned t-shirts calling on voters to support Loeffler’s opponent, Rev. Raphael Warnock. They were intent on making Loeffler’s stance into a painful mistake that would paint her as a racist.
In her short tenure as a senator, Loeffler hardly distinguished herself as anything other than a puppet of the GOP’s corporate wing. She clearly earned her appointment to replace retiring predecessor Johnny Isakson not by virtue of personal charisma but through her long history of active political donations to Republican politicians. Her husband is Jeffrey Sprecher, the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange. She also stands accused of insider trading during the height of the COVID19 pandemic. But nothing in Loeffler’s record justifies the accusation that she is bigoted against black Georgians. Her statement to the league was much more mild than that of Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms who in May told BLM protesters that if they care about their city they should go home after a weekend of devastating rioting. The movement also unfortunately puts a racial face on an issue that deserves more attention: Atlanta’s rampant poverty which in 2018 led to it being named as the most “unequal” large city in the US by Bloomberg.
Exploiting racial and class divisions is to be expected from political demagogues, and that is exactly how Warnock defeated Loeffler. Promising $2,000 stimulus checks, Rev. Warnock was swept into office on Jan. 5 thanks to fawning media coverage. Since then the Democrats have reneged on that promise. However, on January 6 James came out with an appeal to buy the Dream from Loeffler. It could be that this was just hot air, as James hasn’t made any statements about such a purchase since then. However, were they to go through with such a deal it would be a major favour — not for the Atlanta Dream but for Kelly Loeffler. Other black athletes and entertainers have expressed interest such as LA Dodger outfielder Mookie Betts and comedian Kevin Hart. The Dream may be raising black fists on the court, but on the balance sheet they are white elephants. As of 2020 the financial numbers for the WNBA were microscopic compared to its male counterpart
$60 million in total league revenue compared to $7.4 billion in the NBA.
Average attendance of 6,768 fans as opposed to 18,000, which means that the typical WNBA game attracts roughly a third of the audience as an NBA game. Moreover, WNBA tickets average out at $17.42, less than a quarter the price of an NBA ticket.
To the league’s credit it has stabilized a lot since its early days. The league started with eight teams in 1997, quickly expanding to ten the following year and a peak of 16 in the years 2000-02. However, during the 2000s the league contracted as franchises in Charlotte, Cleveland, Houston, Sacramento, Miami, and Portland all folded. Since 2008 the core teams have remained afloat, and Atlanta joined the league as the last expansion franchise (all other new teams are the results of franchise relocations).
As the 2020s are beginning, the WNBA’s prospects are not improving. The league seems to settling into its role not as a vibrant standard bearer of women’s athletics but a niche sports league that barely registers a pulse. The team with the best attendance is the Los Angeles Sparks with an average of 11,307. However, the New York Liberty have taken to playing their games not in New York City’s iconic Madison Square Garden anymore, nor at nearby Newark’s Prudential Center or the Barclay’s Center in Brooklyn. Rather, they play at the outdated 5,000 seat Westchester County Center. Likewise, the Dallas Wings do not play at American Airlines Center as do the Dallas Mavericks, but at the much smaller College Park Center which they share with the athletic teams of the University of Texas at Arlington.
Another aspect of the women’s league that elicits ridicule is the low level of motivation that seems to show at times. In 2018, having experienced flight delays on the way to a road game, the Las Vegas Aces decided not to take the court for a game against the Washington Mystics. The incident occurred only minutes before the start of the game, and the unilateral decision by the players was panned by the media.
Unfulfilled potential
Dunking on the WNBA has become as cliched of a sports pastime as yelling about flopping (which incidentally is also topical to LeBron James). But it is valuable that after decades of having no such forum for competition that in the 1990s it was decided by the NBA and team owners to give women’s professional teams a chance. In that era while the NFL and Major League Baseball were languishing in boredom and scandal, pro basketball was becoming a global cultural phenomenon thanks to Jordan and younger stars like Kobe Bryant and Allen Iverson. While the NBA’s promotions invoked the simple slogan “I LOVE this game”, the new WNBA used the simple but ubiquitous pickup basketball refrain “we got next” when it was first marketed. As with most American men’s professional leagues before it, the WNBA experienced growth pains related to franchise expansion. But in many respects it started out ahead of the curve on a number of topics.
The WNBA had players from Australia, Serbia, Brazil, and elsewhere in its first year. By contrast the NBA only began to attract international talent in the late 1970s after being in operation for 30 years.
The early support of the NBA gave the women’s league the stability that it hadn’t enjoyed. The NBA would rarely appear live on TV until the mid-1980s.
The talent pool for the league was much deeper than for other start-up leagues, because it had few rivals, many female pro players were eager to play back in the USA rather than Europe as they had until then, and there were many women’s college basketball players ready to be drafted.
One of the only controversies the WNBA went through was an early effort to conceal the prevalence of homosexuals among its players. But even in 2000 most observers recognized it as the worst kept secret, especially once New York Liberty player Sue Wicks quipped in a Village Voice interview that it would be easier to count the straight players. Time has vindicated Wicks as in 2018 SB Nation gloated that a third of that year’s All-Stars are openly gay. In 2019 WNBA player Breanna Stewart complained when Saturday Night Live aired a skit poking fun at the gender pay disparity and the prevalence of lesbian players in the league, but couldn’t even create a ripple of outrage.
The doldrums that the WNBA finds itself in have nothing to do with inequality, misogyny, or homophobia. Rather, it is part of a broader trend that has ravaged professional sports for entirely different reasons: Fans are no longer glued to live games, and they certainly do not want politics mixed in. The 2020 NBA Finals saw a 50% downturn from the previous year, despite COVID related restrictions that would have kept fans at home. This is remarkable since the previous year’s finals had also lagged in ratings in part because one of the contestants was the Toronto Raptors. The season had seen the NBA finally emulate the WNBA, when the Milwaukee Bucks walked out of a playoff game as a protest against the police shooting of Jacob Blake.
Et tu, Bronnie?
What this brings us to is the conundrum that will face whoever owns the Dream, whether it is LeBron James’ group or not. The objective of owning and operating a business is both to conserve loyal fans and attract new ones. Kelly Loeffler had several years to dedicate to turning the Dream into an on-court and box office success. Initially the former goal was accomplished as they reached the WNBA finals three times, but she failed miserably at the latter. According to its own figures the Dream have scored 11th out of 12 teams in live attendance every season since 2016 and don’t seem to think that will change. They will be playing this upcoming season at the Gateway Center in the suburb of College Park rather than downtown Atlanta’s State Farm Arena. This new venue only has a capacity of 3,500 seats for basketball. Does the next owner have a plan to save the Dream? If not they could learn from billionaire entrepreneur Bob Johnson, who in 2004 took over the WNBA’s Charlotte Sting. Johnson is known as an innovator in black-oriented media and philanthropy, bridging the gap between different generations through his own ventures and clearly felt that women’s basketball could work in North Carolina. Until 2002, every WNBA team was owned by the NBA itself, which might be one of the reasons that so many of the teams collapsed once the training wheels were removed. Three years later Johnson was done with the experiment, and folded the team after failing to sell it to a group that would have moved it to Kansas City.
James should read the tea leaves. Like his own league, the WNBA has been injected with racial and gender identity politics that have nothing to do with on-court performance. What is he going to do, change his gender and suit up for the Dream? (Don’t laugh, this is an actual possible contingency in 2021). Nowadays it is presumed to be acceptable that people who are assigned (as the terminology goes) male at birth can perform in women’s events. Why not in the WNBA? Sports competitions were always supposed to be an enjoyable retreat from the drudgery of every day life. Children seek them out due to the physical feats they witness and the potential to experience the euphoria of victory whether vicariously through a performer, or by themselves. During his early career LeBron James helped to keep that fire alive among young fans, and during its early period the WNBA did so for young girls in sports. That flame can be rekindled with time if fans are allowed to enjoy the games without the attendant preaching about issues that not only are irrelevant to basketball, but obscure the actual competition itself. An owner that would be fully committed to growing a culture of winning athletics could make the Dream a success. Sadly, LeBron James is the wrong person to bring this change about, and would likely just lose some of his expendable income on this venture.
The next Razor Sharp News Chronicle edition will be to share some of my recent videos and articles.