Still Standing, Fifteen Years Later

After watching the Braves take down Toronto on MLB Network last night, I flipped over to ESPN2 to catch the start of the special WNBA 15th Anniversary game from the Staples Center.  On the first day of summer back in 1996, the New York Liberty and the Los Angeles Sparks played the first ever WNBA game.  Today, the league has twelve relatively stable franchises and, despite its share of struggles, is a mainstay of the American summer sports landscape.

I'm not going to go on about how the quality of basketball in the WNBA is surprisingly good, or about how recreational players like myself should appreciate the game because it's more similar to what they can actually do on the court than NBA or NCAA men's basketball - we all know I've done that enough here already.  Instead, I'd like you all to take a moment to realize what an impressive milestone fifteen seasons is for an upstart sports league like the WNBA.  Fans of the NFL, MLB or NBA may find it easy to scoff at a league that's been in existance for "only" a decade and a half, but the disasterous track record of other, similar start-up leagues reveals how rare the accomplishment really is.

Compare the WNBA to other women's sports leagues.  The WUSA (soccer) made it just three seasons, and it's replacement, WPS, is struggling to get through its third. What about men's leagues, or more popular sports?  We all know how the XFL experiment faired, and I'd be surprised if the UFL makes it through a decade (despite bursts of tremendous popularity, even the USFL folded after five years).  Some people cite the WNBA's association with the NBA as the chief reason or the former's existance.  Well, what about NFL Europe, which folded in 2007 after just 11 seasons?

The WNBA 15th Anniversary broadcast was filled with clips of highlights from the league's first fifteen seasons, and featured some of sport's biggest stars (including Magic Johnson) sharing their favorite WNBA memories.  Regardless of what you think about the WNBA, women's basketball or women's sports in general, we should tip our proverbial caps to the WNBA.  While the WNBA is still a somewhat niche sport which may never be able to truly compete with MLB, golf or NASCAR for viewers, the league has established itself as a legitimate professional sports league, and that's certainly something worth celebrating.