A 5 page paper discussing marketing the Women's
National Basketball Association's acceptance and growing its brand. Many of the WNBA
players differ from other women only in the fact that they play basketball for a living. The
WNBA has thrived on its grass-roots characteristics and it should work to preserve them.
Players generally are unable to stage dunks and other dramatic maneuvers and so
concentrate on solid skills that many of the men's teams have lost. In this respect, WNBA
teams can build appreciation among male fans as well. Teams and the national organization
need to use both approaches in their marketing efforts. Includes a SWOT analysis.
Bibliography lists 7 sources.
Name of Research Paper File: CC6_KS-WNBA.rtf
Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
to see the Womens National Basketball Association to be rated on the same level as its male-oriented counterpart, as well as with mens professional football and ice hockey (Baker, 2000).
The league has survived and grown over the four years of its existence, but as yet does not even approximate the player salaries and fan support of those mens
sports. Neither has anyone expected it to, but the WNBA of course wants to gain widespread acceptance among fans and to grow its brand to the greatest level possible.
The Situation There havent been all that many years that have passed since there was
a good bit of heated debate of whether women should be reporting on sports at all, given that they would need to have access to locker rooms. Of course,
all the locker rooms then were full of male players. As has happened with so many other aspects of gender-blending, the proverbial shoe is now on the other foot.
Male sportswriters are not clamoring to cover WNBA teams as yet, but the day is coming... Predictions and owner positioning aside, professional
womens basketball shows real promise of arriving at WNBA president Ackermans goals for the league. The promise is not resident only in public relations announcements of league officials and
in other marketing avenues, but in results. By 1999 when the league was three years old, the WNBA was "aggressively merchandising more than 100 products--from perennial favorites such as
replica championship jerseys to new lines of clothing" (Anonymous, 1999; p. 8). The results? WNBA product sales then accounted for 15 percent of all such products licensed through