As written previously by Phoenix Stan, "SB Nation is poised to be a major player in the reshaping of the sports media world."
In that spirit, it is fitting that SB Nation launch a women’s basketball site dedicated to providing in-depth analysis of the sport at both the professional and collegiate levels.
In keeping with SB Nation’s innovative use of social media in reshaping sports journalism, our vision is a basketball site that goes beyond merely providing game reports; instead, we want to capture the narratives that fuel our passion for the game, while maintaining the critical stance that helps us understand the game better.
However, it is reasonable to wonder why two relatively recent WNBA converts are undertaking this challenge of bringing women’s basketball to SB Nation.
One way to respond is that Swish Appeal is the extension of our ongoing inquiry about the game we have both loved long before turning our attention to the WNBA. So our work is guided by two questions, the first about what we cover and the second about how we cover basketball:
- How can we more fully appreciate women’s basketball as a variation of the sport rather than merely a second-rate summer hobby?
- How can social media change the way professional sports like the WNBA are covered?
Therefore, our goal at Swish Appeal is to approach women’s basketball with a learner’s mindset – asking questions, maintaining an open mind, and continuously challenging ourselves to "rethink basketball" – as a means to appreciate women’s basketball on its own terms.
We will cover both the WNBA and NCAA Division I women’s basketball with an eye on deepening our appreciation of the game by understanding its nuances and providing you with the most thoughtful analysis we can muster.
Quentin McCall started the Rethinking Basketball blog in 2008 as a public journal of his thoughts about the WNBA from a NBA fan’s perspective. Based in Seattle, he has followed the Storm most closely during the 2009 season, but follows as many games as time and WNBA LiveAccess permit. As part of his own efforts to learn the game, "Q." has used a combination of advanced statistics and observation to better understand the game and provide rich analyses of the sport he loves. His enjoyment of the WNBA has led to an interest in NCAA women’s basketball and at the conclusion of the WNBA season, he will begin covering Seattle-area NCAA basketball as well.
Phoenix Stan is a long time fanatic supporter of the Phoenix Suns and recent convert to the beauty and skill of the women’s game. He has run the popular Phoenix Suns SBN site – Bright Side of the Sun –for 2 years and this summer added in-depth coverage of the Phoenix Mercury. Stan will continue to cover the Mercury for Swish Appeal.
SB Nation is a network of over 210 sites dedicated to the passion of fans. For more information about SBN visit: http://www.sbnation.com/pages/about
The network started 6 years ago but has grown exponentially over the past 18 months. SB Nation now has content syndication partnerships with major online networks including Yahoo! Sports, CBS Sports, Sports Illustrated, AOL and USA Today.
With these partnerships -- in addition to the quality of our content -- we hope to see Swish Appeal develop into a rich and interactive community that feeds the passion of die-hard fans, holds the attention of casual fans, and piques the interest of those whose support women’s basketball has yet to earn.
The SBN platform since the beginning has been designed around interactive multi-faceted communication. As writers, we will do our best to consolidate the best of women’s basketball reporting on the web.
However, we will also be inviting multiple voices to contribute to our ongoing analysis about the game. This is not "us talking at you", but a dialogue that we hope will help deepen everyone’s appreciation of the sport.
We encourage you to engage with us (and in some cases will insist!) and we promise that we will engage back. Please explore this site’s features including comments, Fan Posts and Fan Shots. You can learn more about these and other site functions by clicking on the "Welcome Guide" in the top left corner of the site.
As a new venture for SB Nation, we cannot predict where exactly this project will take us. But we aim to provide any basketball fan that appreciates the game with a community that feeds their passion.
We look forward beginning this dialogue with you as part of this exciting new project and if you have any thoughts, please feel free to contact us at swishappeal@gmail.com or via Twitter at @SwishAppeal.
Note: the content from Rethinking Basketball will soon be imported into the archives of this site, whereas the WNBA content from Bright Side of the Sun will remain in its WNBA section. We have imported a few of our articles here for the time being.