Column: WNBA at 23 has labor issues, but also a new boss and a plan to stand alone
LA TimesBreanna Stewart led the Storm to the WNBA title last season but will miss the upcoming one because of injury. “The map is telling me ‘keep walking,’ ” said Jackson, the executive director of the Women’s National Basketball Players Assn. I’m, ‘Oh my goodness, is this what it’s come to?’ I was disappointed.” The WNBA has experienced the franchise moves and failures that historically have affected sports leagues in their early years and still faces unhappy circumstances like those that have shunted the Liberty to substandard facilities, but it has come a long way as it prepares on Friday to begin its 23rd season with games in Atlanta and New York. “It’s about how to protect, be the caretakers, of this legacy, because they see themselves as responsible for ensuring that their sisters — the young girls and young women coming behind them — have this league as something to aspire to and have it at a far higher level than where it is right now.” The NBA has been patient in funding the WNBA. Sign up for our daily sports newsletter » “With the WNBA, I think in many ways we were way ahead of our time because it’s just now we’re beginning to see the mainstream acceptance of professional women’s sports, and ultimately if it’s going to be a business, that’s required because you need people to buy the tickets and buy the merchandise and watch it on television.” Whether there’s enough interest to sustain a women’s pro league remains the issue.