Time for Donna Orender to Step Up

By Melissa Oliveira: SPM Contributing Writer
Posted Monday, January 8, 2007

Sao Paulo, Brazil -- Several new developments in the past week saved WNBA fans from the usual off-season doldrums by creating a lot of buzz. Unfortunately, some buzz was killed, too, as the Charlotte Sting became the third charter franchise to bite the dust with the only explanation being an all too familiar excuse given by yet another malcontent NBA owner.

With the Los Angeles Sparks and Houston Comets (soon) being sold by their NBA counterparts, independent ownership will be in charge of five teams in 2007. With that, the question being thrown around by fans is: does the WNBA still have the full backing of the NBA?

This is not the first major crisis faced by the league and it won't be the last.

Actually, franchise movement is a very common market consequence of this business model. The problem is that the Sting wasn't the only franchise on shaky ground and the league's lack of a contingency plan in what was a very foreseeable development is troubling.

Franchise movement is fine; franchises folding is not.

Let's pretend for a second that the league didn't know that Charlotte Bobcats' owner Bob Johnson would fail to hold up his end of the deal with the NBA to keep the Sting for at least five years. Let's also pretend that upon learning of Johnson’s plans the league's office tried its best and couldn't convince him to hold onto the Sting for only another season until a new investment group stepped up. What would have been the league’s next move?

To be fair, that’s a hard question to answer. It would have been a difficult, tough position for the league to be in, had this all happened suddenly and the WNBA been caught by surprise. But the truth of the matter is, it wasn't a surprise at all.

The fans could see it coming, the press saw it coming, smoke signals have been sent out of Charlotte for at least a year, and still no plan was put in place, prospective owners were not given the green light to explore deals with Johnson and the NBA.

The Sting had been struggling with low attendance, a dismal win/loss record, and poor support from their owners for some time.

Can you name at least one other WNBA franchise with the same symptoms?

The broader question is what has been done to address the potential next wave of sudden ownership moves that could happen as soon as the end of the next season? While the talk of expansion is clearly at the top of Donna Orender's agenda, there can be no true expansion if teams keep folding.

So is it in fact a move towards a new business model disguised as expansion? Which leads us back to our initial question. How strong is the NBA support of the WNBA right now and, moreover, how much can the league still depend on David Stern's strong-arm tactics to force unhappy NBA owners to keep their WNBA franchises going?

The transition to independent ownership could be painful, but it will happen eventually. There are still market opportunities to be explored and committed NBA owners. The prophets of doom have been predicting the end of the league since its inaugural tip-off, but it has survived and weathered storms on its way to the 10th anniversary celebrations that took place last year.

To reach new milestones though, the league also needs to address that big pink elephant in the room, the new Collective Bargaining Agreement. The current CBA expired at the end of the 2006 season, but the WNBA has an option to extend it through 2007. The last time the league and the WNBAPA sat down to negotiate terms of the new CBA, things got ugly and an agreement was reached at the eleventh hour, jeopardizing the 2003 season.

One major hold-up was free agency and we can expect that this will be back on the agenda with, among other things, the end of the core designation (another potential sticking point,) maximum salaries and a new salary cap.

Damage control is going to be a required skill on both ends. While the players certainly deserve a raise, a few franchises on the rocks would find it hard to absorb the impact of a higher salary cap. With dwindling attendance and not many other revenue streams, the league must convince the Players Association that it cannot survive without striking a prudent deal.

Once more, the burden of the league's continuity will be placed on the players and it's ultimately up to them to decide whether or not it will be worth it.