In a recent interview Golden State Warriors (NBA) owner Joe Lacob discussed his desire to own a WNBA team. At one point, he was presented with the opinion that women's basketball, unlike tennis and some other sports, falls far short with regard to viewer enjoyment, versus the men's version. Lacob disagreed, but then added:
"Now, what you could say, and I might agree with you, is that there aren’t as many good women’s basketball players. There aren’t as many good teams in college. It’s always the same four, five teams, six teams every year, and they kind of kill the competition. I think they need to have a greater number of players, a greater number of teams to be competitive to make, to generate a lot of interest."
And you have to wonder - does the dominance of a few in college not just hurt interest in the college game, but as a side effect, also hurt interest in the WNBA as well?
Number of NCAA Championships by school in the 16 years since the formation of the WNBA in 1997:
Connecticut | 7 |
Tennessee | 3 |
Baylor | 2 |
Maryland | 1 |
Purdue | 1 |
Notre Dame | 1 |
Texas A&M | 1 |
Number of Championship game appearances in the WNBA era:
Connecticut | 7 |
Tennessee | 6 |
Notre Dame | 3 |
Baylor | 2 |
Louisville | 2 |
Stanford | 2 |
Purdue | 2 |
Duke | 2 |
Louisiana Tech | 1 |
Rutgers | 1 |
Oklahoma | 1 |
Michigan State | 1 |
Texas A&M | 1 |
Maryland | 1 |
Number of Final Four appearances in the WNBA era:
Connecticut | 11 |
Tennessee | 8 |
Stanford | 5 |
LSU | 5 |
Notre Dame | 4 |
Duke | 4 |
Baylor | 3 |
Oklahoma | 3 |
Rutgers | 2 |
North Carolina | 2 |
Purdue | 2 |
Louisville | 2 |
Georgia | 1 |
Minnesota | 1 |
SW Missouri State | 1 |
California | 1 |
Louisiana Tech | 1 |
Texas | 1 |
Michigan State | 1 |
Maryland | 1 |
NC State | 1 |
Georgia | 1 |
Penn State | 1 |
Arkansas | 1 |
Texas A&M | 1 |