Sunday, September 19, 2010

If a Game Is Not Reported in the Papers, Did It Happen?

Well, the Seattle Storm ran the table and won the WNBA championship, not that you would know it be reading the San Francisco Chronicle. Oh wait, nobody reads papers anymore anyway, do they? C and R can understand the Chron wasn’t interested in the championship series because the home WNBA team wasn’t in it. Oh wait, there is no Bay Area home team. In fact, there is not Northern California home team.

Okay, newspaper readership is dwindling, and the mainstream interest in the WNBA isn’t there, but it is one of the few professional women’s leagues and the finals should have gotten at least an article in the middle of the paper. C and R had to read about the championship game on the last page, in a three-sentence blurb. How can the WNBA build interest with sports fans if the game is not reported? Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Seattle went undefeated at home, went undefeated in the playoffs, set all kinda records and Lauren Jackson, the league’s MVP was the finals MVP. The other team in the finals was the Atlanta Dream, an expansion team that lost 30 games two years ago and found themselves battling it out in the finals in its third year of existence. Last year’s first round draft pick for the Dream, Angel McCourty, played out of her head, and twins, yes twins are helping the Dream cause. Although the Dream went down 0 for 3, they fought hard each game and each game was exciting and went down to the wire and was won by less then 5 points. SOoooo many angles the news writers could have hit this one from. But no, back page blurb instead.



In other women’s basketball news, the US National Team lost to Australia. Again, didn’t get it from the local papers, had to read about it online. Jayne Appel, former Stanford Women’s Basketball Player is on the team, but no, the papers ignore this game, too.

Oh, BTW, The Seattle Storm became the first all-female ownership group to win a professional sports title.

What does it take to get coverage around here?

1 comment:

  1. The Finals was simply great. No one has ever done it like LJ does it. Some of what she does makes your jaw drop -- and mens bb fans would recognize her greatness if they had a chance to see it or hear about it. Swin is amazing -- any hoops fan would appreciate her clutch-ness and deadly-ness if they had a chance to hear about it. Have you guys talked to sports editors at the Chronicle?

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