WNBA President LISA BORDERS is off to Seattle for All-Star Weekend, where she is confident the city will help showcase her league's players and community initiatives. Borders will be on-hand at KeyArena not only to speak on the league's growth and future, but also to spend quality time with players. Borders: "The city of Seattle has done an extraordinary job of wrapping their arms around our Seattle Storm and the All-Star Weekend in general. We’ll be bringing the best of the best across the entire league and my hope is it’s going to be very impactful."
TEAM PLAYERS: The Mariners, Seahawks and Sounders have made us feel welcome and have really supported the Storm as a host. One example is turning their buildings orange to signify their standing in solidarity with the Storm. They've really rallied around us. It’s a compliment to the citizens of Seattle but also from our peer professional leagues and teams. I arrived in Seattle on Thursday and that night we had a reception and an exchange of jerseys with the Mariners. Some of our players even threw out the first pitch. That was probably the tip off for the whole weekend.
JAM-PACKED SCHEDULE: Friday morning we have open practices for both squads and then we have a fitness clinic with the Smilow Rainier Vista Boys & Girls Club. We’ll be spending some time with our players teaching basketball drills, warmup excersies and nutrition tips. Then we’ll have a BOG meeting for about two hours. It’s a wonderful time to get everyone together, because we are all in the same place supporting our league. It’s efficient to have that at that time. Then we’ll have a Chief Operating Officer meeting as well. Around 6:00pm, we'll go to the city’s Space Needle and raise the flag for the Storm after an orange carpet reception. Then on Saturday, the game is 12:30pm on ABC and I’ll do a press conference right before that discussing the state of the league and the All-Star Game itself. At halftime we’re bringing back the 3-point contest in conjunction with the Players' Association. Five players will compete for $10,000, which the winner will then give to her charity of choice.
LEAGUE-WIDE CELEBRATION: We evaluate our team's bids to host the All-Star Game using a pretty rigorous process, and we expect a tremendous weekend in Seattle. We really want to showcase our players, but we’re also looking for a sellout. Our hope is that KeyArena will have every seat filled with people who are interested in cheering for these players who are so good at their craft. Basketball is a global sport. It’s played all over the world and many of our players perform in international markets outside of our season. So these are global citizens hitting the hardwood with ESPN helping show the whole world what’s going on with the WNBA. Our expectation and hope is that our TV viewership numbers will be good as well. After the game I’ll probably be with our players soaking my feet in ice after all the running around. It’ll just be about relaxing and having good conversations along with a good meal.
Know of someone you’d like to see featured in Weekend Plans? Shoot an email to tleary@sportsbusinessdaily.com.
