Wednesday, September 29th, 2010 at 11:31 am  |  10 responses

World of Importance

The World Championship for Women is more important than you think.

by Clay Kallam

Though it’s relegated to NBA TV, and the small print at the back of the sports section, FIBA’s World Championships for Women are really a big deal. In fact, that importance is one of the big differences between women’s and men’s basketball, and it has a significant impact on the way the WNBA is structured.

Maybe the best place to start is the more familiar NBA, which is the best league in the world — and not incidentally pays by far the biggest salaries. That financial incentive brings the best players in the world to the NBA, and the NBA title is the most prestigious in all of basketball.

In addition, American dominance in men’s basketball is so pronounced that the Olympics and World Championships were, for decades, of interest only to see if anyone couAngel McCoughtryld come within 20 points of the USA. Recently, they have captured a little more attention, but realistically, if the top Americans show up, the outcome is a foregone conclusion.

The same might be said of the women’s international competitions, but the talent gap is not nearly as large. The Australians won the World Championship in 2006, and though the Americans have dominated in FIBA events since 1994, the gap between the US and the rest of the world is not nearly as great as on the men’s side.

Another difference is the relatively low pay scale in the WNBA. The salary cap that is crucial to the league’s survival limits top players to about $90,000 a year — while those same women can make three or four times as much in European leagues in the winter. As a result, many of the top Europeans, and even some of the top Americans, don’t play in the WNBA, which means that even though the WNBA is the best league in the world, it does not have the same reputation as the NBA.

That, in turn, means that the WNBA title is not the most prestigious championship in women’s basketball — in fact, it’s third, behind the Olympics and the World Championships, and some would even claim the Euroleague title is on a par with the WNBA. (The Euroleague matches the top club teams (as opposed to national teams) in a winter-long competition that culminates in its own version of the Final Four.)

So even though WNBA fans were focused on the Seattle Storm’s run to the WNBA championship, the rest of the world is paying much more attention to the World Championships in the Czech Republic. What they’ve seen is an American team minus Cappie Pondexter (taking time off), Seimone Augustus (injured), Candace Parker (injured) and Cheryl Ford (injured) roll through a series of overmatched teams, but both Spain and Australia are considered worthy opponents. In fact, the United States will play Australia Wednesday at 2:15 p.m. EST in pool play in what could well be a preview of the gold medal game — but to see it, you need access to NBA TV, or a willingness to pony up $25 to get FIBA’s feed on your computer.

That relative invisibility doesn’t mean that the World Championships really don’t matter to the United States, or the WNBA, because the event is so important that the WNBA must schedule around it — just as it must schedule around the Olympics every four years. This season, the WNBA started earlier than it would like so that its players could get to the Czech Republic for the September 23 start of the competition, and on top of that, the importance of the World Championships means that almost all the WNBA stars are playing in the event.

That matters because the European season starts immediately after the World Championships, and then the WNBA summer schedule begins right after Europe finishes. Elite female players, then, get no breaks, and essentially play year-round. That wear and tear has its impact on length of careers, both mentally and physically, and also leads to some players choosing to skip the WNBA because they can make more money in Europe.

So even though there’s not going to be much coverage of the World Championships for Women in America, even if you look really hard, that doesn’t mean it’s not important — in truth, it’s more important than the WNBA, and to the international players and coaches, right up there with the Olympics.

  • Add a Comment
  • Share
  • RSS

Tags:

  • http://slamonline.com The Black Rick Kamla

    seriously we need a new commentator, this British dude is absolutely terrible. Steve Smith and Kamla…get on it!

  • Barry

    Great article, Clay!

  • Clay Kallam

    I think the guy does every game solo … it would be better if there was another voice.

    And thanks for the kind words.

  • http://members.cox.net/pilight/ pilight

    I think you overestimate the US men. Even with our best players, we would not be a sure thing for the Gold.

    It continues to disappoint that Europeans value women athletes so much more highly than Americans do. Perhaps we’ll catch up to them someday.

  • Katharine Sinderson

    I would never think that world championships were not important, but then I am a British sports fan and that seems part of the template that one grows up with. Nor would I consider that women’s world championships are less important than men’s, in any sport, whatever the level of media attention they receive, or the relative level of professionalism or amateurism of the competitors taking part. A world championship tournament is a world championship tournament.
    What does seem curious to an outsider however is the attitude of American sports fans to such tournaments. One could discuss this at length, but to take an example cited above, it seems that for many years the men’s basketball world championships were not regarded as having any importance at all in the American scheme of things, and little attempt was made to send a team which would be on a par with an Olympic team, or be acknowledged as such. As evidence go to the excellent book ‘The Golden Age of Amateur Basketball’ which is about the men’s AAU championships of the fifties, and which doesn’t acknowledge the first world championships at all. Also, I suppose one could make the point that for all the citing of Title lX as the key force for improvement in the participation rates of girls and women in US sports, other countries way of doing things can be affective.

  • Katharine Sinderson

    …or even effective.
    Incidentally, in the UK women’s basketball only exists as a minor part of what is only a minor sport anyway, and I haven’t seen any coverage sadly. I am intrigued to know who the ‘British dude’ commentator is.
    What I had also meant to say is that the US record in the men’s world championships, certainly in the days when it was amateurs only does not replicate the Olympics, when one might have thought that the greater strength and depth of the US game would ensure a US win. Argentina won the first world championships and that seems to have set the tone for the US attitude to the tournament.

  • Clay Kallam

    America’s arrogance throughout the 20th century is slowly being chipped away by the harsher reality of the 21st … and of course, it didn’t just show in sports. The whole idea of American exceptionalism, championed by George Bush and the Tea Party movement, simply evaporates under a close examination of history and the impossible-to-ignore flow of current events.

    On another level, it’s too bad that Great Britain isn’t strong in basketball, but then again I’m not sure what team sport GB women focus on. Not soccer, certainly … netball?

  • Katharine Sinderson

    Apart from rounders in primary school, netball and [field)hockey are seen as the traditional female sports. Netball certainly promotes itself as a recreational sport for women. But, in a culture that is soaked in it, I think it is actually association football that girls are increasingly taking up, claiming their birthright as it were, by playing the game in ever greater numbers.

  • Katharine Sinderson

    Apart from rounders in primary school, netball and (field)hockey are seen as the traditional female sports. Netball certainly promotes itself as a recreational sport for women. But, in a culture that is soaked in it, I think it is actually association football that girls are increasingly taking up, claiming their birthright as it were, by playing the game in ever greater numbers.

  • Clay Kallam

    I’ve always wondered why GB didn’t have a strong women’s football program — but they’ve seldom been in the mix in the Olympics or World Cup.

Advertisement
Fullcourt.com