12/28/98 Misc. column
The Insville and the Outski
(NOTE: This week's column uses tables.
For a text-only version, click here.)
MISC., your post-print column for (what the Times Personal Tech
section calls) the post-television age, was amused by the double standards and
double dribbles in that front-page P-I headline on 12/22/98: "Reign star
Enis judges basketball, parenthood." Y'ever see a headline like that about,
say, Shawn Kemp?
Alas, that P-I story was one of the last written in the local
dailies about the Seattle Reign before the team's parent American
Basketball League announced its sudden, permanent shutdown, leaving fans as
bereft of pro women's b-ball as it is of the men's game. One could lay the
blame for the ABL's demise on the rival WNBA, with its megabucks backing, its
marketable-superstar orientation, and its stranglehold on sponsors and TV
outlets. But a less-discussed factor was the league's management structure.
While it claimed to be a grassroots, fan-level outfit, it was really a
centralized company which owned all its teams, hired and assigned all its
players, and otherwise tightly ran all operations and marketing--just like the
Roller Derby, Arena Football, and other assorted marginal team-sports ventures
of the past three decades.
The graveyard of new team-sports organizations in North America is full of
four decades' worth of great and less-great visions, from the >American
Basketball Association to the World Football League and the U.S. Football League, to World Team Tennis and
several attempts at indoor soccer. Aside from the American Football League
(which got all its teams merged into the NFL in the late '60s), none were
long-term successes. (The only current such ventures with a chance at making it
are Major League Soccer and the aforementioned WNBA.) None of those attempts
found the formula for nationwide popularity and profits; though some tried to
find such a formula thru centralized management. A single-ownership league
structure (like that of the ABL) can present a unified public image and prevent
a single well-heeled team owner from attaining an uncompetitive dynasty
situation (like that which ruined the old North American Soccer League). But it
also means local team managers can't build their own squads, around
personalities or playing styles popular in their own towns. And when league HQ
runs out of cash and/or ideas, there aren't local team owners (or buyers) to
come up with individual solutions other teams can copy.
But for now, the WNBA (with its emphasis on megabucks and celebrity-driven
advertising, and its neglect (or worse) of any lesbian fan base) is the
remaining structure for women's pro hoops, at least until the parent NBA can no
longer afford to subsidize it (which, if there's not even a mini-NBA season,
might be more likely and sooner). Wish I had more encouraging news for stranded
Reign fans, but a pro league of any sort, especially one with teams scattered
across the continent, is an undertaking requiring immense logistics, savvy, and
long-term backing. The ABL way didn't work, and neither has just about any
other way.
THE HOLIDAY TRADITION CONTINUES: For the 13th consecutive year, here's your
fantastical Misc. In/Out List. Thanks to all who contributed suggestions
via private email and the public Misc. Talk discussion boards; and
apologies to those whose board postings I accidentally erased last week. (I
think I've gotten the hang of the discussion-board software scripts by now.) As
always, this list predicts what will become hot or not-so-hot over the
course of '99; not necessarily what's hot or not-so-hot now. If you think every
person, place, thing, or trend that's big now will just keep getting bigger,
I've got some Tickle Me Elmo dolls to sell you.
UNTIL NEXT WE MEET in the year so great there's a Washington highway named
after it, pace yourself by toasting the New Year once for each North American
time zone (starting with Newfoundland at 7:30 p.m. PST), and ponder these
thoughts attributed to Lillian Helman: "If I had to give young writers
advice, I'd say don't listen to writers talking about writing."
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