While athletes and officials are working hard, the WNBA lacks in popularity as compared to the NBA. The WNBA 2023 Finale averaged only 728,000 viewers, while its male counterpart had an average viewership of 11.6 million. But critics predict that this is to change soon. The 2024 WNBA draft has a lot of star power and talent especially the number one pick by the Indiana Fever Caitlin Clark.
Clark has reached the Finals of the two NCAAs in a row. Wherever Clark went in the previous NCAA season, the ticket prices soured up. While the women’s NCAA 2024 had an average of 18.7 million viewers, the men’s NCAA 2024 had 14.8 million viewers. This gave hope to the WNBA fans that their favorite league would soon get the attention it deserves and it rightly got so. The game between the Indiana Fever and last year’s runner-ups- the New York Liberty witnessed a record revenue of over $2 million from ticket sales. Not only did the Liberty benefit but the Connecticut Sun too had a sold-out stadium. Meanwhile, Indiana’s Gainbridge Fieldhouse saw an attendance of 17,274 fans. But how much water is enough? The NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal’s ex-agent Leonard Armato believes that the glass is still half empty.
In a recent exclusive interview with EssentiallySports, Leonard Armato enunciated it is not Clark but the height of the hoop that can solve the problem and attract more viewers. The current height for both men’s and women’s basketball is 10 feet. Fans mostly watch the NBA to see their favorite stars dunk and alley-oop, which is considerably lesser in the WNBA reckons Armato.
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Leonard Armato: “I’ve been saying this for 20 years. Plus one of the reasons that I think the WNBA doesn’t get the ratings it could is that 56% of basketball fans say that dunking and alley-oop is the favorite part of the game for them and you see the highlights on TV and you’ll see constantly highlights involving crazy dunks and fun dunks and fun alley-oops. And they just don’t have it as part of their game and I’ve been advocating for years that the women should put their rim to 9 feet. In volleyball, the net is lower for women so they can spike and volleyball as a women’s sport is probably more popular than volleyball as a men’s Sport.”
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The main thing to check here is if women’s volleyball enjoys more viewership than its male counterpart. Based on this, the WNBA can reach a decision to lower the women’s hoop, if at all it decides to alter the rules.
Is women’s volleyball really that popular as stated by Leonard Armato?
While the men’s volleyball net has a height of 2.43m, the women play volleyball with a height of 2.24m. A lot of fans on the internet have stated their preference for women’s volleyball since it is more technique-oriented than men’s which is more reliant on speed and power. The rallies in women’s volleyball are much fun to watch and if Armato is correct the game counters their spikes by lowering the net for the women.
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In 2023, female viewership saw an increase of 151% from the 2022 Championship match which says a lot about how the game has progressed. And it is estimated that the women’s game will remain more popular than that of the men’s.
Perhaps, the WNBA can contemplate lowering the hoop for women who can then perform more dunks and alley-oops which in turn, as stated by Leonard Armato, can propel their sport.