The trajectory of the WNBA is up, up, up, and that means many things, but one of them is that there is work to be done. A lot of work. Everything the WNBA does needs to be examined and reconsidered—not because it’s wrong, but because a growing business grows in many directions.
Most organizations know they need to respond, in some way, to failure. Smart organizations adapt to success. The WNBA needs to reinvest strategically in its product—in some ways that are obvious and much-discussed, but in some that are not.
“No question about it,” Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve said Thursday, between Games 3 and 4 of the WNBA Finals. “I think the league office itself, expanding its head count … they’re growing the business side. I also think the operations side can use more bandwidth, so we can expand what we’re doing.”
WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert announced last week that next year, the regular season will expand from 40 to 44 games and the Finals will go from best-of-five to best-of-seven. Fifteen years ago, the league was still contracting teams because it couldn’t find owners. Now every city seems to want one, and ownership groups in San Francisco, Toronto and Portland have all purchased expansion franchises.The league has already gone to fully private air travel for its teams. As Reeve pointed out this week, having a practice facility has quickly gone from an exception to an expectation.
So what should happen next?
If you have watched the Finals between the New York Liberty and Lynx, you have seen two outstanding teams and an officiating performance that is unworthy of them. That is a harsh statement. But the whistles have been so inconsistent from player to player and possession to possession that it’s frustrating even for neutral observers. What constitutes a foul under the basket? When does contact under the basket become a shooting foul? Your guess is as good as mine. Sometimes it’s hard to know if there is a uniform standard being applied or if the refs are flipping coins in their heads.
In Game 3, the Liberty’s Jonquel Jones backed into the Lynx’s Alanna Smith in the post, knocking her over, and the refs called a foul on Smith. It wasn’t just a bad call. It was inexplicable. There was literally nothing Smith did that constitutes a foul on any level of basketball. It should have been either a foul on Jones or a no-call. That’s one example, but it’s one of many.
Blaming individual refs is easy but misses the bigger picture. The underlying issue is systemic. As you might expect from a fledgling league, the WNBA has struggled in the past to train and retain referees. But there is more revenue now, and some of the fixes are fairly easy to implement.
Most pro leagues lean on off-site officials to administer or at least assist in replay reviews. Their logic is straightforward: Officiating is supposed to be unbiased, and referees are naturally biased toward confirming a call they have already made themselves. Refs, like most people, want to believe they were right, and when they view a replay, they sometimes see what they want to see.
But the WNBA still allows game refs to conduct reviews. Compounding the problem is that during the regular season, refs don’t have access to enough camera angles, which bogs down the process. The result is a replay system that often fails—and because it often fails, coaches are reluctant to challenge calls and lose a timeout, even when they are right.
Perfecting officiating is hard, but improving it is easy. It just takes commitment and proper funding. The WNBA should implement a centralized, off-site independent replay-review system by next season.
Now, let’s think bigger, literally.
Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever played two games in Chicago this year. Those were two games in which the league’s most popular player renewed her friendly rivalry with Angel Reese, in the nation’s third-largest metropolitan area, in a location that is drivable from the only two states, Iowa and Indiana, that Clark has ever called home. Everything about those games screamed marquee matchup except the venue: 10,000-seat Wintrust Arena in Chicago.
It’s a nice place. But the United Center is twice as large, and the Sky and Fever would have filled it.
For all the talk about an attendance boom, look around. The Washington Mystics play in a 4,200-seat arena. The Atlanta Dream play in a 3,500-seat Arena. The Dallas Wings play home games in a 7,000-seat arena on the campus of the University of Texas at Arlington.
The WNBA currently has a team in Uncasville, Conn., but not in Philadelphia, Boston or Houston. That made some sense in 2003, when the league needed established fan bases and the state of Connecticut already had one. It does not make sense in 2024.
If the Sun were like the Green Bay Packers—a beloved civic institution with a rabid national fan base—this would be fine. They are not. They are more like the Tampa Bay Rays: A well-run team that keeps punching above its weight but has obvious limitations. The Sun have no practice facility, no real geographic appeal (sorry, Uncasvillians!) and no real chance of attracting and keeping talent in the modern WNBA. There is a reason the NBA doesn’t have a team in Fort Wayne anymore.
The Sun were very good again this year; they nearly made the Finals. But look closer. Jones asked for a trade and got one. Stars Alyssa Thomas and Brionna Jones could bolt this summer. Former coach Curt Miller left for Los Angeles. Current coach Stephanie White is rumored to be leaving as well.
The WNBA is growing fast, and franchise-location decisions are especially complicated. There are leases and ownership groups and all sorts of either considerations. The Dream moved out of the arena they shared with the Atlanta Hawks just five years ago because it was too big for their fan base at the time. The Sun are owned by the Mohegan Sun tribe, which uses the team as a way to bring customers into the casino that houses the arena. Engelbert cannot just unilaterally move the Sun to Philly—and the Sun have said they intend to stay where they are.
So yes: This is a lot to manage. But putting teams in the best markets and arenas is not just good for individual franchises; it benefits everybody. The Sun played one game in Boston in August and drew 19,000 fans. (And no, Clark was not playing: The Sun defeated the worst team in the league, the L.A. Sparks. Clark is fantastic, but the WNBA boom is not a one-woman story.)
The Golden State Valkyries would be much better off playing a road game in Boston than in Uncasville—and would be much better off hosting a team from Boston than from Uncasville. As valuations increase, the Sun will be more attractive to a buyer from another city. WNBA lawyers should be looking for ways to pressure the Mohegan Sun tribe into selling.
Engelbert has to be strategic and wise. In the 1990s, Major League Baseball was so sure it needed teams in Florida that it awarded expansion franchises to Miami and Tampa Bay even though neither city had a proper pro-baseball facility. Neither market has justified that decision.
But the WNBA needs to put its product in the best possible places for it to succeed. That means expansion to the right places, but it also means getting creative with one-off games and events.
The Fever should play a home game in Iowa City—and not just at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, but at Kinnick Stadium. The Super Bowl champion gets to host the first game of the next season, on national television, with nobody else playing. Why can’t the WNBA champion get the same perk?
One thing that has been clear for years is that people who love women’s basketball love it proudly. Some male sports fans and potential franchise owners used that pride against the sport, dismissing the fan base in misogynistic and homophobic ways. But being the most prominent women’s sports league in America is a marketing opportunity.
U.S. presidents have a long history of throwing out the first pitch of the baseball season. If Kamala Harris is elected the nation’s first female president, the WNBA should absolutely beg her to do an honorary tip-off before next year’s opening game. Imagine a game in Seneca Falls, or the Liberty and Mystics playing a game in special RBG jerseys—and yes, I know these ideas sound ridiculous and might be unfeasible for a hundred reasons.
The point is to think creatively. Go big. Don’t just capitalize on the buzz—use it to create more. Ten years from now, WNBA players should look back on the 2024 season and say: “Remember when we thought that was a big deal? Look at us now.”
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Relocate the Sun? The WNBA Needs to Start Thinking Bigger.
