Through Sunday's WNBA games, leaguewide attendance was
down 16.6% from '99 (see THE DAILY, 6/20) and seven teams
"have watched attendance drop" by more than 24%, according
to CBS SportsLine's Clay Kallam, who wrote that throughout
the league, there "are claims that the difference between"
the attendance number "printed in the paper and the number
actually in the arena is substantial, sometimes in the
thousands." With the league averaging 8,508 fans per game,
Kallam wrote that it's "unlikely" that average attendance
"will come close" to the 10,869 fans in '98 or 10,207 in
'99. Kallam: "Even though this year's WNBA product may be
better, fans are choosing not to go because of their
experiences last season -- and the expectation that a lot of
the teams weren't going to be fun to watch this time
around." But Kallam noted that there are "some healthy"
franchises -- the Fever, Mystics, Mercury, Liberty and
Comets -- and "even if this is the top of the mountain for
women's professional basketball in the United States, the
view is still a whole lot better than anyone thought it
would be just a few years ago" (CBS SportsLine, 6/20). WNBA
President Val Ackerman said the initial drop in attendance
this season could be attributed to the "earlier" season
start date: "We're seeing an impact from that. We were
competing with the NBA Finals, the Stanley Cup, we opened on
Indy 500 weekend, and in many places schools were still in
session" (SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER, 6/21).
