Earlier this week, I got involved in a “why do men hate the WNBA” discussion on Twitter. I learned after the fact that the person I was “tweeting” with was WNBA player Olympia Scott. Of course, Twitter is a less-than-ideal medium for making a reasoned argument. The 140-character limit is… pretty limiting, and having grown up in a world without text messaging, I’m still inclined to use punctuation in my sentences. So I’ll respond to Ms. Scott’s question here.
To be fair, she didn’t start out asking why men hate the WNBA — she simply wanted to know why the two leagues are constantly compared to each other. That doesn’t generally happen in other sports — people don’t generally compare and contrast the games of Serena Williams and Roger Federer, or judge male and female beach volleyball players against each other. So why does every conversation about the WNBA seem to lead off with “they’re less athletic than the men, they play below the rim, and they can’t dunk?”
I think the answer is simple.
Marketing.
via The WNBA, the NBA, and Why We Compare the Two on About Basketball
