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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   25760 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 1, 2024

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It's funny the WNBA can't capitalize on WNCAA interest when the latter is a feeder to the former (admittedly a lot of charismatic WNCAA players will go from being superstars in that arena to middling in the pro leagues, but still)

At risk of wildly extrapolating from my own experience with my peers, women generally don’t care that much about sports. They’ll watch if someone they know is on the team, or if the other members of their group want to watch or if their SO wants to watch, but they only rarely seek out sports on their own. They also don’t follow as closely even if they do watch. The male sports fans I know can name players, know stats, follow trades, know coaches, etc. so this also boosts the sports men like because it’s not just catching a weekend game, it’s following news about their team, it’s buying merch, attending in person (if one has the means).

I think the only way to get profitable as a women’s league is to do what women’s tennis does — make the players dress in cute outfits, push the players to be media personalities that women bond with, sell the kinds of merch that women buy because it makes them look cute. Have pinups for the men. The WNBA suffers because they can’t admit what their audience actually wants. The men want women’s sports to be hot pinups that look cute in short skirts. The women want to have pararelationships with successful women on social media. What they’ve done instead is treat the WNBA as a “men’s NBA, but with women,” which doesn’t work. Men follow men’s sports for the competition and women’s sports for the hotties.

Is woman's tennis a big moneymaker? I haven't heard much about it.

Women's Tennis benefits from being a bit more volatile and a bit less serve-driven than the Men's game.

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