How to increase attendance to women’s basketball games

The other day, I received an interesting question from a reader of WomenTalkSports.com. The individual, a college student, said:

“I’m working on a project to increase attendance at a women’s basketball tournament. Because this is your specialty, I was hoping you could offer any available tips or resources you’ve encountered on the best way to achieve this.”

To be completely honest, I didn’t know a good answer to give him. My personal feeling, as an ex-college basketball player, is that it’s a complex issue that involves many social, cultural, athletic talent and (obviously) financial factors.

Stumped, I crowdsourced the question to my fellow bloggers of the WomenTalkSports community and tweeted the question via twitter.com/womentalksports.

Below are some of the responses I received. What are your thoughts? Interested in continuing this conversation, as many of my friends found it worthwhile to answer.

Question: What are some ways to increase attendance to women’s college basketball games?

Answers….

@loisheilig: “That is a tough question. But if there were more games on TV someone might
watch & decide they would like to go see one. And keep the prices down.”

Sports Girl Kat: (speaking from her personal experience): “Giveaways such as such as iPod Touches, a pair of Red Sox tickets, gift certificates, and a semester’s worth of textbooks.” “T-shirts, free popcorn and soda, as well as competitions between students.”Have a student DJ spin between warm-ups and the game. Dare really popular students to bring as many friends as possible – if they bring 15, they get a coupon for several pizzas. Find out what your non-sports fans will come out to an non-sporting event for, and offer that inconjunction with a basketball game.”

Jayda Evans: (speaking with WNBA perspective) “I would have thought the W’s Live Access would helped, but only a few games aired without constant buffering. If you can’t get coverage, you have to see the product to develop some sort of connection that pulls you to the arena. I’d also say more weekend matchups and probably day-time starts during true summer months. More families can attend games without disrupting kids’ sleep sked. Lastly, I’d say drop some prices down or offer more perks with the ticket. Even college ball in some areas are trying to entice and people love free stuff or the feeling of getting a real good deal.”

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WNBA playoffs begin September 16

Great video from the WNBA. Watch the playoffs!!

My night at the Liberty game… and you’re invited to a discount, too

“AND HERE ARE YOUR NEW YORK LIBERTYYYYY!”  Those words by the announcer got the crowd rockin’ Thursday night at Madison Square Garden as the New York Liberty hosted the Washington Mystics.  This post will tell you a little about my experience and gives a great offer for an experience of your own.

I have to admit, last night’s game was only my second WNBA game and coincidentally, it was my second Liberty game.  I had courtside tickets for the first time ever, thanks to a recent contest on WomenTalkSports.com.  After last night I realized that everyone sitting around me who were also court side, seemed to all know each other.

It was like the court side fraternity.  No wonder all the celebrities hang out there, it’s a great place to be!  Fans were high-fiving each other and talking to the players each time they’d run down the court.

Speaking of fans, upon first glance, the only one-third filled Garden didn’t seem too intimidating, but I have to say, once the game started those loyal fans can really make some noise.  Although the majority of the first half the Liberty were taking quite the beating, the crowd would still cheer like crazy when something went their way.

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Sports Industry: Women and Minorities Wanted, Future Sole paves the way for sneaker designers

As a minority woman, recent college graduate and an aspiring sports journalist there is only one thing I am searching for; an opportunity.

This post is about opportunities for minority women in the sports industry, and it touches on a special sneaker design contest called Future Sole. While the registration deadline for this contest has already passed (6/1/09), there is still an opportunity for you to participate by voting for the winner. This post (hopefully) will give you reason to do so.

In order to paint the picture for how important this program is, I decided to share a little bit about my own life.

I posses a strong desire to make a name for myself in the sports communication industry, and by myself, I mean a strong African- American woman with a high passion for sports.  The last couple of weeks I have been searching day in and day out for a fall internship. “Sports Journalism”, were my initial keywords that I typed in many search engines, which then opened my eyes to other career paths, ones that I wasn’t aware of.

I stumbled across the NCAA career center, where I discovered the sports information director profession. Immediately I took a strong interest in the position, the job sounded appealing to my interests. However, I will be honest; the fine print at the end of all of the job descriptions grasped the majority of my attention and ignited my confidence.

The fine print read somewhere along the lines of ‘women and ethnic minorities strongly encouraged to apply’, which seemed to good to be true. After more internship searching, this statement became a reoccurring theme.

There is a lack of women and minorities in the sports media industry.

As an African- American woman that is striving to become successful in the industry that I love, I plan to be a force in breaking down the barriers, race and gender combined. I am confident that  I have the same dream as many other young female athletes; when I was young, I wanted to be a professional basketball player, until recently I realized the odds of that happening were slim to none.

I  decided not to give up; I just made the decision to take another road to the same goal.

I discovered my passion for writing, media, and sports. I switched my college undergraduate major from Health and Physical Education to Journalism, because I love to write I played basketball my entire life on the high school and collegiate levels.

I now have my B.A. in Journalism at the age of 23, and can proudly say that I’m the first in my immediate family to achieve a college degree. My brother (pictured with me above) is close behind, too, set to finish his degree in the next couple of years.

This is an accomplishment that I am very proud of, however, I will always look back and wish there were more opportunities and exposure along the way to guide me toward my dreams.

With a lot of hard work and some help from others on the way, I made out alright. But as a child, or teenager, they were non-existent.

I believe one of the keys to making a way for women in sports media is opportunity. My community and childhood surroundings didn’t introduce me to women’s sports; actually my middle school didn’t even have a basketball program (those opportunities came later – in junior high, high school and college).

But one thing I learned is that it isn’t too late to make change.  I plan to give back to the young ladies in my community, which is predominately African- American, and help them broaden their horizons.

On a larger scale, there are still individuals who have become successful, and are providing chances for the youth. Future Sole is an example of such an organization.

Future Sole is a sneaker design contest that was created in 2007 to give youth the access to the footwear design industry.

“When I was growing up, there wasn’t a forum to learn about the sneaker design industry or a community to share design ideas,” said Edwards. “Many kids don’t know a career in footwear design exists, so with Future Sole I wanted to open their eyes to the possibilities and show them how they can achieve it.”

- D’Wayne Edwards, Jordan Brand Footwear Design Director

Future Sole is a nationwide high school footwear design competition co-sponsored by Nike. The contest is in its second year, and the registration ran until 6/1/09. High school students between the ages of 14-19 were eligible for the contest. While the deadline for this has past, you can still participate by voting for the winner.

Why women? Because there are only 2% women of color collectively. The contest hopes to close the demographic gaps in the industry.

Lisa Leslie of the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks is a sponsor of this program, and this really speaks to her ongoing support of minority youth trying to make it in the industry.

“I believe this program will  impact many kids lives in a very positive way. I think this is an awesome opportunity for any child who’s creative and loves to draw. I am happy to be a role model and have the opportunity to give back especially in my own community!”

What that says to me is there is another avenue for creative women (especially colored women) in the sports industry to take. Last years winners were two males, while that is awesome, maybe this year can be different, and two women can win the contest.

I can remember a good friend of mine always drawing pictures of cool sneakers when we were younger; he wanted to design sneakers. If he had access to an organization like Future Sole back then, he may have been able to pursue this dream.

For more information, please visit www.futuresole.com. To vote for a winner, click here.

Basketball teammates help girl with amnesia

Just saw this story on ABC’s World News. It’s a good one. Good enough to share it with you.

It’s about a girl named Kayla Hutchinson, who, at the age of 19 as a student-athlete at Walla Walla Community College, collided with a teammate during a basketball practice and suffered a concussion (very common).

A few days later, however, she started losing her memory, didn’t know where she was, and had responses similar to that of a toddler. She didn’t know where she was, and couldn’t remember anything from the 19 years of her life. Memories of vacations, graduation and holidays were all gone. On top of all of this, she couldn’t do things like make her lunch or get to class.

Who was there to help? Her teammates.

Hutchinson’s roommates, all female athletes, started recognizing the problem as soon as Hutchinson returned back to her downtown apartment. Hutchinson couldn’t feel her arms and didn’t remember her roommates’ names.

Her basketball coach was equally concerned.

“When I recruit these kids, I make a promise to their parents to take care of them, but you never think it’s going to be this. Every year I get 15 new children. Kayla is like a daughter. Every day when I wake up, my first thought is How’s Kayla?”

When the accident occurred, Kayla’s parents wanted to take her home to Idaho. But, as this news report on KomoNews.com says,

“they found a network of support so tightly woven around their daughter that to remove her would have been detrimental, they believed.”

Hutchinson’s teammates, coach, roommates and professors all helped to get her back on track. Last year, she was released to participate in most of the basketball practice drills. She’s writing and reading again.

If you missed World News, you can watch this again on ABC’s Nightline at 11:35pm ET for the full story.

(Podcast) WNBA’s Chantelle Anderson: blogging about female athletes, lesbians and her image in the sports industry

On Friday, I conducted one of my favorite interviews – an informed telephone conversation with Chantelle Anderson who plays for the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream.

Chantelle touched on many different points in this interview, but this discussion was not centered upon her role on the court.

Instead, it’s formulated around some of the topics that Chantelle has brought up off the court on her blog, and they have to do with the image and sexual orientation of modern female athletes. Read more

Attention New York Liberty Fans: Free popcorn, lunch with Kia Vaughn

Attention New York Liberty fans – need reasons to buy tickets to the games?

Here are a few: you can get free popcorn at games at Madison Square Garden, and if you buy VIP season tickets, you can have lunch with newly-drafted (Rutgers grad) Kia Vaughn. Read more

Women’s Hoops Final Four

It might be April but the fun and excitement of Division I Women’s College Basketball March Madness is still underway.

And then there were four. The ladies of # 1Connecticut advanced after a (83-64) win against # 6 Arizona State, # 3 Louisville defeated # 1 Maryland (77-60), # 1 Oklahoma State was able to finish on top of # 6 Purdue (74-68), and # 2 Stanford rolled over # 4 Iowa State (74-53).

In a match up set for 7 p.m. this Sunday night, April 5^th, # 3 Louisville (33-4) will take on # 1 Oklahoma State (32-4), and # 1 UCONN (37-0) will duke it out with # 2 Stanford (33-4) at 9:30p.m.in St. Louis, MO.

Just looking at the impressive records of the remaining teams it is safe to anticipate that these will all be very good, exciting, competitive games. I think the last draw will certainly come down to UCONN vs. Oklahoma State, with UCONN taking it all. There is just something about these huskies this year, oh maybe it’s their undefeated record, extremely talented line-up, and perhaps their phenomenal coach.

Once upon a time, the WNBA reached out to female bloggers…

And they lived happily ever after.

This is not a fairytale – it’s truth.

Today, the WNBA reached out to me (on behalf of Women Talk Sports), @techmama Beth Blecherman of Silicon Valley Mom Blogs’ Techmamas, @PunditMom of PunditMom and Sarah, @GoonSquadSarah, of Blogher.

Why? Because they wanted our opinion. On how they can become more involved in social media.

It’s truly refreshing to hear when a company actually decides to listen and take feedback from its audience – namely, in the WNBA’s case, influencers of niche female blogging communities.

We gave them some great ideas, including having athletes join Twitter (in my opinion this is the most important thing they need to do), making RSS feeds more visible and identifiable, having more embeddable/portable content, having WNBA players create viral videos teaching basketball moves, attending blogger conferences such as Blogher, guest blogging, offering tickets and incentives to bloggers so they can give them away as prizes, inviting bloggers to attend the WNBA draft, making WNBA players available for weekly or monthly interviews.

This is all really great stuff (there’s more, but it’s too much to type up).

I learned a few things, too…

I learned that Diana Taurasi maybe be one of the first WNBA players on Twitter, also maybe Candice Wiggins (who’s got a great background story). I heard that the WNBA has many great charitable programs that bloggers should hear about and cover. Also, I was invited today to join the WNBA’s Facebook fan page and follow them on Twitter, @WNBA.

In addition, I came to the realization that female sports bloggers need to start more actively engaging with mom blogs (we have many similarities). Together, we can help promote female sports initiatives. THEY are the ones with the connection to the youth audience.

I hope (if I can afford it) to attend future Blogher conferences and network with some of the mommy bloggers – I hope some of the female professional sports teams (and their sponsors) will be in attendance, too. Would be great to have an entire session dedicated to female sports someday.

Anyway, if you have any ideas that you’d like me to pass along, please be sure to leave me a comment. I’m very excited of this new relationship, and I hope WNBA will continue to foster more as they grow to engage directly with their fans and become a more transparent, credible organization.

Practice scheduling and discrimination in sports

“It shouldn’t be any different because of our gender or who we are,” she said. “Maybe people think we don’t take soccer as seriously because we are girls. I take this seriously,”said Christina Angione, 16, a soccer player at Beacon School on the West Side.

The above quote was taken from an article I read today that was published a few days ago on the NY Times website. The article was about high school girls’ soccer being played in the spring opposed to in the fall like the boys teams in New York City.

According to the article, girls have been playing soccer in the spring for 28 years.

However, many of the female players and their parents haven’t agreed with the scheduling, their complaints and threats urged the Department of Education, who were facing discrimination charges and a possible lawsuit to change the schedule.

The article goes on to talk about the many difficulties playing in the spring oppose to fall gave these young ladies and the benefits it gave the boys to practice in the fall.

The reason the article took my attention was the issue of equality amongst men and women that goes overlooked every day. The article made me feel like girls being second to boys has become so second nature that it isn’t even recognized to many as being discrimination.

I can remember something similar happening to me while I was in high school. I was a part of a winning program, my high school girls basketball team, was better than our guys team almost every year I attended.

Practice scheduling is always tough; however practicing is always tough for dedicated student athletes. The best practice times are earlier, it leaves more time for homework and rest, right?

This one time I’m thinking of my high school athletic director, who scheduled my winning basketball team. At the time, we may have been undefeated. But we were forced to practice at the 7-9pm slot. For whatever reason, we always had the latest time, and the freshmen boys team the earliest practice.

I’m not even sure ever won a game.

Enough said.

Team Dynamics and Lifelong friendships

  This is not a political or even a current event topic, but I thought I would share a little personal story about friendships and the value of being a member of a team.  Although I am describing my relationships on my basketball team, I do recognize that there are many other “teams” other than relating to athletics. 

  Recently, I received a phone call from a former basketball teammate of mine announcingher engagement.  After pausing to let the shock sink in, I started reminiscingon the friendships I had made with my basketball teammates.  Even though there are many former teammates that I do not speak with reguarly, I still do have contact with a good number of alums.  Only after I graduated from my New Jersey college did I really begin to grasp the sheer privilege of being on my basketball team with 15 or 16 others.  I gained valuable communication skills, leadership qualities, important time management skills, as well as numerous other priceless life lessons. 

 To this day, I regularly communicate with a handful of my former teammates and consider those women to be some of my closest, if not the closest friends I have.  Many go to college, but few leave with the lifelong friendships that were formed from athletic teams.  I cherish my time in school and that I had my basketball family members with me every step of the way and for that I thank each and every one of them.

Texas’ Renee Renz scores 63 points in four-overtime game

According to the NCAA, Texas A&M’s Renee Renz scored 63 points in a game that went into four overtimes against Alibene Christian.

This is the third highest score in NCAA history for Division II basketball. Highest is 67 points scored by Jackie Givens in 1991.

What’s equally interesting is that her teammate,  Britney Jordan, scored 53 points against the same exact team two days earlier.

Must suck to be Alibene Christian. Although it seems as if the two games were pretty good.

Full story is on NCAA.

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