Ladies First: WNBA Monarchs Target Women Amid Crowd Drop

The Comets-Monarchs game Tuesday night "featured two of the best teams" in the WNBA, but, "typical of the season, only 7,170 caught the action live," according to Ailene Voisin of the SACRAMENTO BEE. While "there isn't exactly panic in the streets," the league-wide attendance decline "is causing concern in the corporate offices." Voisin: "No one really gets it. No one really knows how to 'grow the product.'" The "bottom line is that the WNBA is still in the test-tube stages, a wonderful product but inexact science, and one that has failed to connect with a wide audience." TV ratings "have also dipped, as has media coverage in most of" the 16 WNBA cities. Monarchs Owner Joe Maloof, on attendance: "At the end of the season, we have to really sit down and analyze this. We're putting a strong effort behind it. ... We have sales people strictly for the Monarchs. ... But this is a league-wide issue, and I'm like everyone else. I don't know what the answer is." Voisin adds the causes of the attendance problem are "thought to be the usual culprits: scheduling conflicts with summer vacations, rising ticket prices, lack of novelty, and, admittedly, both an ongoing failure by ... organizations to click with a broader segment of the community, and an inability to accurately identify the present and future fans." Monarchs VP/Marketing Steve Wille, on the team starting to market to women: "We've become convinced that we have to find the women who are passionate about the WNBA, and let them bring their fathers, husbands and families" (SACRAMENTO BEE, 7/11).

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