The Women’s NWNBA ational Basketball Association (WNBA) is an American professional basketball league. It consists of twelve teams, all WNBA based WNBA totally WNBA within WNBA WNBA the United States. The league become founded on April 22, 1996, as the girls’s counterpart to the National Basketball Association (NBA), and league play started in 1997. The everyday season is performed from May to September, with the All Star recreation being played midway thru the season in July (except in Olympic years) and the WNBA Finals at the give up of September until the start of October.
Five WNBA groups have direct NBA WNBA opposite numbers and typically play inside the identical area: Indiana Fever, Los Angeles Sparks, Minnesota Lynx, New York Liberty, and Phoenix Mercury. The Atlanta Dream, Chicago Sky, Connecticut Sun, Dallas Wings, Las Vegas Aces, Seattle Storm, and Washington Mystics do no longer proportion an arena with a direct NBA counterpart, despite the fact that four of the seven (the Dream, the Sky, the Wings, and the Mystics) percentage a marketplace with an NBA counterpart, two (Mystics and Dream) play in NBA G League arenas, whilst the Storm shared an area and marketplace with an NBA team, the SuperSonics, at the time of its founding. The Dream, Sky, Sun, Wings, Aces, Sparks, and Storm are all independently owned.The Aces are owned by way of an owner who additionally owns an NFL team (Mark Davis of theRaiders, who have the equal marketplace).History[edit]League based and play starts offevolved (1996–ninety seven)[edit]
The creation of the WNBA became officially approved by WNBA using the NBA Board of Governors on April 24, 1996,[1] and introduced at a press conference with Rebecca Lobo, Lisa Leslie, and Sheryl Swoopes in attendance.[2] The new WNBA had to compete with the recently shaped American Basketball League, every other professional women’s basketball league that commenced play inside the fall of 1996 however could end operation at some stage in its 1998–ninety nine season.
The WNBA started with 8 teams: the Charlotte Sting, Cleveland Rockers, Houston Comets, and New York Liberty within the Eastern Conference; and the Los Angeles Sparks, Phoenix Mercury, Sacramento Monarchs, and Utah Starzz in the Western Conference.[3]
While not the first major ladies’s expert basketball league in the United States (a distinction held through the defunct WBL), the WNBA is the only league to receive complete backing of the NBA.[four] The WNBA logo, “Logo Woman”, paralleled the NBA brand and become decided on out of 50 exceptional designs.[three]
On the heels of a miles-publicized gold medal run through the 1996 USA Basketball Women’s National Team at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games, the WNBA commenced its first season on WNBA June 21, 1997, to little fanfare. The first WNBA recreation featured the New York Liberty dealing with the Los Angeles Sparks in Los Angeles. The sport become televised nationally in the United States on the NBC tv network. At the WNBA begin of the 1997 season, the WNBA had tv deals in place with NBC (NBA rights holder), and the Walt Disney Company and Hearst Corporation joint venture channels, ESPN and Lifetime Television Network, respectively. Penny Toler scored the league’s first point.[five][6]Houston domination and league enlargement (1997–2000)[edit]
The WNBA centered its advertising and WNBA marketing campaign, dubbed “We Got Next”, round stars Rebecca Lobo, Lisa Leslie, and Sheryl Swoopes.[7] In the league’s first season, Leslie’s Los Angeles Sparks WNBA underperformed, and Swoopes sat out lots of the season because of her being pregnant. The WNBA’s genuine superstar in 1997 become WNBA MVP Cynthia Cooper, Swoopes’ teammate at the Houston Comets. The Comets defeated Lobo’s New York Liberty inside the first WNBA Championship recreation.The preliminary “We Got Next” commercial ran earlier than each WNBA season till it changed into replaced with the “We Got Game” marketing campaign.
Two teams have been added in 1998 (Detroit and Washington),[8] and two more have been added in 1999 (Orlando and Minnesota), bringing the number of teams inside the league as much as twelve.[9] The 1999 season began with a collective bargaining agreement among gamers and the league,[10] marking the primary collective bargaining agreement to be signed within the history of women’s expert sports activities.[eleven]The WNBA also introduced in 1999 that it might upload 4 greater teams for the 2000 season (the Indiana Fever, the Seattle Storm, the Miami Sol, and the Portland Fire), bringing the league up to sixteen teams, with WNBA President Val Ackerman discussing expansion: “This won’t be the cease of it. We assume to preserve growing the league.”[12]
In 1999, the league’s leader opposition, the American Basketball League, folded. Many of the ABL’s megastar players, such as numerous Olympic gold medalists (which include Nikki McCray and Dawn Staley) and a number of standout college performers (including Kate Starbird and Jennifer Rizzotti), then joined the rosters of WNBA teams and, in so doing, better the overall first-class of play inside the league. When a lockout WNBA ended in an abbreviated NBA season, the WNBA noticed faltering TV viewership.
On May 23, 2000, the Houston Comets became the first WNBA group to be invited to the White House Rose Garden. Before this invitation, only guys’s sports activities groups had traveled to the White House.
At the cease of the 2000 season, the Houston Comets received their fourth championship, capturing every identify because the league’s inception. Led by using the “Big Three” of Sheryl Swoopes, Tina Thompson, and four-time Finals MVP Cynthia Cooper, the Comets ruled each crew within the league. Under head teach Van Chancellor, the team posted a 98–24 record through their first 4 seasons (16–3 inside the Playoffs). After 2000, Cooper retired from the league, and the Comets’ dynasty got here to an quit.The L.A. Sparks; new league ownership and contraction (2001–2002)[edit]
The pinnacle contender in the 2001 season changed into the Los Angeles Sparks. Led through Lisa Leslie, the Sparks posted a normal-season record of 28–4. They superior to their first ever WNBA Finals and swept the Charlotte Sting.
Looking to repeat in 2002, the Sparks again made a strong run towards the postseason, going 25–7 in the regular season beneath head train Michael Cooper, previously of the Los Angeles Lakers. Again, Leslie ruled warring parties in the course of the Playoffs, main the Sparks to a perfect 6–zero record thru all three rounds, beating the New York Liberty inside the 2002 Finals.
Teams and the league have been together owned by way of the NBA till the end of 2002, when the NBA offered WNBA groups either to their NBA opposite numbers in the equal city or to a 3rd party because of the dot-com bubble. This led to 2 groups moving: Utah moved to San Antonio, and Orlando moved to Connecticut and have become the primary WNBA crew to be owned by way of a 3rd party as opposed to an NBA franchise. This sale of groups additionally led to 2 teams folding, the Miami Sol and Portland Fire, due to the fact new WNBA proprietors could not be found.Bill Laimbeer leaves his mark (WNBA 2003–2006)[edit]
The Women’s National Basketball Players Association (WNBPA) threatened to strike in 2003 if a brand new deal became now not labored out among gamers and the league. The end result was a delay within the begin of the 2003 preseason. The 2003 WNBA Draft became also not on time, and poor exposure become won from this strike.[thirteen]
After taking up a suffering franchise in 2002, former Detroit Pistons ahead Bill Laimbeer had excessive WNBA hopes for the Detroit Shock in 2003. The crew was simply nine–23 in 2002. The Shock had 3 all-stars in the 2003 All-Star Game (Swin Cash, Cheryl Ford, and Deanna Nolan). Laimbeer orchestrated a worst-to-first turnaround and the Shock completed the season 25–nine in first location within the Eastern Conference. Winning the first rounds of the Playoffs, the Shock faced -time champion Los Angeles Sparks and Lisa Leslie within the 2003 Finals. The Shock beat the Sparks, triumphing sport three on a WNBA three-pointer by way of Deanna Nolan.
After the 2003 season, the Cleveland Rockers, one of the league’s original 8 groups, folded due to the fact the proprietors were unwilling to retain running the franchise.
Val Ackerman, the first WNBA president, resigned powerful February 1, 2005, bringing up the choice to spend extra time with her family. Ackerman later have become president of USA Basketball. On February 15, 2005, NBA Commissioner David Stern announced that Donna Orender, who had been serving as the Senior Vice President of the PGA Tour and who had performed for numerous groups inside the now-defunct Women’s Pro Basketball League, could be Ackerman’s successor as of April 2005.
The WNBA offered an expansion team to Chicago (later named the Sky) in February 2006. In the low season, a fixed of rule adjustments become approved that made the WNBA more like the NBA.[14]
In 2006, the league became the first crew-orientated girls’s expert sports league to exist for ten consecutive seasons.[15] On the event of the tenth anniversary, the WNBA released its All-Decade Team, comprising the 10 WNBA players to have contributed, via on-court docket play and off-courtroom sports, the most to women’s basketball at some stage in the league’s lifestyles.