Quote Originally Posted by EastsideAl View Post
The future of the WNBA may be in smaller towns like Tulsa that are hungry for some major league sports. They can't really seem to get beyond a small dedicated audience in most big cities. So, the league is getting mostly buried in these large markets and must be taking a financial bath. Here in the Detroit area, where due to the bad economy even the big-time major league teams are having trouble drawing, the outlook must be even more gloomy for them.

When I lived in NYC I knew someone who worked for the WNBA [[a fellow former Detroiter). The Liberty, who played at Madison Square Garden, were lucky to draw any paying crowds over 10,000, received almost no attention from the local media even when they were successful on the floor, had very high costs trying to promote their product in NYC, and were heavily subsidized by MSG and the NBA. However, the Connecticut franchise, which played in a small town casino, were much better off even when their crowds were somewhat smaller, and had a much more engaged fan base. So I can see how smaller markets would bring down the teams costs and would potentially make it possible for them to at least come closer to profitability, if indeed the league has any real future at all.
It will be interesting to see how successful they are in Tulsa. Sure, 10,000 people won't fill up the Palace, but will they be able to regularly pull 10,000 people in a market that small? More importantly, will they be able to charge the same mark ups on tickets and concessions that they can get away with in larger markets like Detroit?

You're right that the Liberty get virtually no coverage in NYC -- much less coverage than the Shock get in Detroit -- but NYC also has twice the number of major sports teams as Detroit. The MLS team here in NYC gets zero coverage by the media.