Hoops

Lightning Crowds

^ Agreed.
That's disappointing to hear about the Lightning. Player-fan interaction after the games is one of the real positive points of difference about the WNBL (or at least most of its teams).

What's with dumb policy that doesn't allow fans on to the court once the game has finished at Lightning games? Shouldn't the WNBL be promoting fan & player involvement once the game has finished? I believe most other WNBL teams actively promote this fan engagement but at Lightning games you get security guards running from everywhere once this 'massive security breach' has occurred. Turn it up Lightning & try to be better than that, you can't afford to continue to alienate your very small fan base!

Me , I will go and watch Cambage play even though those on hoolahoops reckon she caint play... notta burton fan though...

So what I'm reading in this thread amounts to:

"Sport A is better/has wider appeal/gets more clicks than Sport B so Sport B should not expect good crowds or media coverage."

Isn't that why NBL has smaller crowds/media coverage/appeal than AFLW? So that's okay too?

Whatever paul. Everyone knows you hate women's sport. It is clear through your years of following it and posting about it and having articles published about it etc etc.

The Lightning used to get pretty good support back in the day, so it's not like the team is something that people are unable to be interested in.

facts*

It's not true because a few females don't recognise the fact that WNBL is far inferior to NBL and other sports which happen to be male dominated and popular enough to be on the news but let's call males who state the dacts ignorant and sexist derpity derp derp

It's not true just because one or two ignorant males don't appreciate women's sports ya doofus lol

No, he's not. Truth hurts, huh?

Pauls a chauvinistic twit

How about you give the WNBL the same opportunities and media coverage and people will decide for themselves

I agree with Pop. Paul is a clueless whinger

That's YOUR perception #198.

The PERCEPTION is that the WNBL doesn't warrant attention. I would argue that perception is false.

However, I recognise that perception rapidly becomes reality, so the challenge is to change the perception.

Many of the negative comments above are very good examples of how to reinforce the current flawed - in my opinion - perception of women's basketball, which I understand from many of these comments is seen as having little or no value despite featuring the best players in the country including Olympians and internationals.

Admit kids 15 and under free, get them to the game and get them hooked so they keep asking the parents to take them back.

If the team continues to win more people will get on board and the crowds will increase. Everyone forgets this team has been terrible for a long period and no one wants to pay money to see a losing team, just human nature. Last nights crowd was pretty good, improvement on opening night

Why not do most games as double headers and save on costs?

Yeah, I know bad news sells...

I'm just a glass half full type, and believe in the "Build it and they will come" approach.
Which Melb Fan says is working in Melb.

It would be nice if they at least tried and persevered.

TM... wrong. People love that sh_t despite your opinion of it (yes those three do suck). WNBL on the other hand - people aren't interested in it to warrant news stories.

re anon ...163
Neither does Nick Kyrgios, Tiger Woods or the Australian cricket team, but we hear about them all the time

WNBL doesn't warrant regular news stories. Sorry, get with reality.

Most of the above points are valid, all to some degree.

Promotion - a few observations...
During the last few weeks here in Adelaide I have seen on multiple channels of nightly news/sports segment the following;

Every 36ers import arrival at the airport

An interview with Joey

An interview with Diamonds coach and separately on a different night an interview with Diamonds players, video of Diamonds at training

Interviews with players and coach of the Reds as they start their season this week in Brisbane (not even at home)

The only time the Lightning were mentioned was a story about coach Lucas health. Nothing since.

Surely it would only require one person involved with the Lightning to be tasked with creating a dialogue on a weekly basis with a tv channel (pick one with a female presenter), and provide info about upcoming games, arrange player interviews, etc.

In this day and age I don't see how any channel could refuse to allocate equal minutes of air time for this.

"Male competitions of the same standard generally attract even fewer fans, so I don't really buy that argument."

Paul is spot on. The only gone who gets it. Sorry, but WNBL does not equal NBL. Hence lower crowds and interest.

It also might take a little while to get the word out that this team doesn't completely suck anymore. Probably school holidays will help too.

How much would they earn from gate receipts approximately? Why not offer free tickets to a local club a game, would think it might boost crowd and get a few returning paying customers if the quality is good.

"Male competitions of the same standard generally attract even fewer fans" ??

Not sure where that is coming from. A good few male players could have learnt a thing or two - or three - from some of the play and players on show in last night's game.

Some referees could have learnt how not to do it, but that's a different discussion.

Scheduling is definitely an issue but is not something that can be changed for this season at this stage.

I believe the answer lies in promotion/awareness, though exactly how to achieve that is not clear, since it's an on-going issue.

Probably only option is 'word of mouth' - which is pretty much the most effective form of advertising anyway. These days that probably translates to 'word of twitter' or 'word of facebook' but the principle is constant - lots of positive talk, on-going even if there's no obvious immediate improvement.

Less of the 'Male competitions of the same standard generally attract even fewer fans' - which I honestly don't understand, given the quality [international and WNBA] of players in the WNBL - and more of:
'should have seen that pass
'should have seen that black guard's pull-up jump shot
'should have seen Abby, she dominated everything
'jeez the defence was aggressive
'they just keep on winning
'the coach is back after his cancer scare
'it's only $10
'parking is easy
... and so on.

Playing at the same time as the 36ers did (albeit interstate) doesn't help matters either

Women's sport is always hard to attract crowds. Not because of the standard, because of a lot of cultural issues.

It's OK for women to watch men's sport, but if men watch women's sport they are seen as filthy perverts leering.

Was a teammate of new 36ers import John Williamson for Honka in Finland last season averaging 21.8ppg, 4rpg & 3.3apg.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/basketball/taipans-throw-ball-to-wilson/story-e6frect3-1226109183992