Show Up

I spent last weekend in New York City. I love New York (as a non-resident) and love to spend a long weekend up there about once a year or so (this year it's been twice; last year I skipped entirely) to enjoy what The City has to offer before getting back to my more comfortable surroundings down here around the nation's capital.

As I was walking towards Madison Square Garden and Penn Station to take the train home, I noticed a banner above the entrance to the Garden advertising the upcoming WNBA's New York Liberty playoffs with the bold words "No Excuses" and "Show Up for the Playoffs". I'm assuming the banner was talking to the fans, not the players, imploring the Liberty faithful and others to get their butts to MSG to cheer on the hometown team in their second round best of one series. Is that right? Fans need to be cajoled to get themselves to a home playoff basketball game?

I then spent part of last night at Capital One Arena watching the Washington Mystics beat the Dallas Wings in the first round of the WNBA playoffs (also a best of one) and I have to say the place was pretty much empty. This after the Mystics posted the below tweet on Tuesday afternoon encouraging people in D.C. to do just what the Liberty were doing in New York: "We need you there!" So the questions here are: is there an attendance issue with the Mystics and are we doing everything we can to support this team that occupies an important part of the sports landscape in Washington? I'm going to argue that there is and we are not. I'll also argue I'm almost as much to blame as anyone else out there.

Maybe we should start with some numbers. Last year the WNBA reported that they averaged their highest average attendance since 2011. That sounds really positive for the league. And digging into the numbers, their claim appears to be true, that attendance WAS in fact higher last season than the previous four. But it also didn't really dip much in those four down years nor did it climb much last season. In fact, average attendance per game over the prior 12 seasons before 2017 has never been below 7,300 per game nor above 8,200 per game. That's a remarkably steady record and it almost sounds pretty good. But I have to tell you, there is no way there were more than 3,000 people at last night's game. And it was a playoff game. So maybe the Mystics just draw fewer fans than the rest of the league?

Turns out that's not necessarily true either. Yes, the Mystics were in the bottom half of the league in attendance last year and yes, their average attendance was reported at slightly less than 7,000 but those numbers are not that far off the league averages to yield that few people in seats last night. Yes, it was a Wednesday and it was raining (which has had a tendency to postpone or delay Mystics games this summer due to a leaky arena roof) and it was an 8 p.m. start. If the average attendance last year in a non-playoff year was almost 7,000 there should have been more people in the building. And I have to say based on attending three other games this year (well...two because one was postponed due to the roof leak) the attendance last night wasn't out of the norm. In fact, I'd say it was probably higher than the other games I've been to. So what gives?

Well part of the problem may be the Capital One Arena (formerly Verizon Center) itself. The place is huge for this kind of event. When set up for a Wizards game, the capacity is 20,308. During a Mystics game, they don't even open anything above the lower level bowl except the suites so even with a "full" arena, everything above the lower level is going to be completely vacant. You can overcome some of that issue by lighting the arena strategically; if the 100 level is full of fans, you won't even notice the place is more than half empty.

The Mystics appear to be proactive about solving this issue in a way other teams have already figured out: play the games in a smaller arena. 7,000 people in a 7,500 seat arena makes it look way more full than the same number in a 20,000 seat building do. The Dallas Wings (the Mystics' opponent last night) do not play in the same arena as the NBA's Mavericks in downtown Dallas. Instead they call the smaller 7,215 capacity College Park Arena on the campus of the University of Texas at Arlington home.

 

The view from Section 118 last night. Not too full.

I expect that by the time the 2019 season rolls around, the Mystics will have resolved the empty building feeling and moved over to the new Wizards practice facility (the building is scheduled to open in summer or fall of 2018). That building will hold far fewer fans than Capital One Arena and that's likely a good thing for the atmosphere of the games. However, it appears there may not be enough space in that building. Depending on the source and the timing of the reporting, the capacity of that building has been reported as 5,000 seats by the Washington Post in September 2015; a little over a year later, the Washington Business Journal had the figure down to 4,200.

So why would the team do that? If the Mystics draw a bit less than 7,000 in a non-playoff year (last year) why are they building an arena that is going to top out at 4,200 fans? Won't that leave some fans on the outside looking in?

So let's get back to the numbers again. I've already stated that my unscientific fan count last night yielded fewer than 3,000 fans. That exercise can be incredibly difficult to undertake: it's impossible to count all the people individually and a lot of empty space in a building tends to give the impression that there's nobody there so if you guess at the numbers, the natural tendency is to guess low.

So let's look at things another way. If the article I used to get last season's attendance numbers is to be believed, then the lower level of Capital One Arena holds about 7,400 people. Last night's reported attendance was 6,483, meaning the lower level was 88% full. There is no way that is true. Look at the pictures of the crowd in this post. I can draw no other conclusion than the attendance figures are inflated. I no longer believe the published attendance figures from the league. They just are not credible.

 

Crowd picture #2 after we got upgraded, presumably to show more fans in the picture on ESPN2.

So what? Where does that leave us? Well, I have to say unfortunately it leaves us with a professional team in Washington that's making the playoffs and is not being supported. This makes little sense to me. I get that the game is different from the NBA but it's the only major women's league in town and this team is good this year. Folks should be heading downtown just even once or twice a year to see this team in action. It's also incredibly affordable and, depending on the situation, even free sometimes. We should be going to these games. I say there's an attendance issue with this team and we are not doing all we can to solve it.

So what's the problem? Well, I admit I'm part of it. Each team in the WNBA played 17 regular season home games this year. I attended two (three if you count the postponed roof leak game). That after attending just two in 2016 and zero in all the years before that. I'm committed from this point forward to support this team more than I have in the past. I believe all Wizards fans should do the same thing.

In the five (or six depending on your point of view) games I've actually attended in the last two years, I paid for just one of them. The other four/five I was either provided tickets for free for being a Monumental Network subscriber ("free" with the purchase of Wizards season tickets) or have used Monumental Rewards points accumulated by spending money on the Wizards. I've turned down at least two or three other free sets of tickets this year because of schedule conflicts. These free tickets by the way may be contributing to what I see as inflated attendance figures and if you are a conspiracy theorist, the team building an arena that holds fewer people than their reported attendance may prove that the team is inflating attendance figures.

Last night's game was exciting. Some cold shooting early on in the game hampered the flow a little but by the middle of the second quarter, the Mystics had built a pretty good double digit lead. Which they then proceeded to squander by halftime. In the second half the team was solid and they built an early lead which they never relinquished behind some timely shooting from Elena Delle Donne, Kristi Tolliver and Tianna Hawkins with some solid overall play from Emma Meessemen. It also had some typical playoff elimination game hallmarks: some scuffles, lots of free throws at the end of the game in a desperate comeback attempt and an ejection.

 

Unfortunately, that maybe all we see this year at home unless the Mystics can go up to New York and defeat the team that is begging their fans to show up on the banner outside their arena. If they do, they will be in the WNBA semi-finals with a game three (and possibly game 4) on the home wood at Capital One. And if they do that, we all ought to show up.

 

Mystics win!!! On to New York.

 

Social Conscience

Since the day I started this blog, I've maintained that most of what I've written about or will write about in here is pretty inconsequential and silly stuff. I've deliberately done that to distinguish this blog from other news sources and blogs which cover my favorite basketball team. They write about stuff that happens on the court; I mostly stay away from that stuff and focus on stories about bobbleheads, mascots, in arena giveaways, ticket prices, trips to road games and things like that. This blog is not about basketball; it's about being a basketball fan.

But every so often, I feel it necessary to write something a little more serious. I think today is one of those times. Over the past four years plus I've been writing this blog, I've tried to be more serious through my MLK Day posts and a handful of other posts here and there. I'm taking some time to do that today based on the NBA and WNBA both taking a stand on social issues in the past week. One got it perfectly right; the other one fumbled things a little. Or maybe a lot.

This past Thursday, the NBA decided to move the 2017 NBA All-Star Game from Charlotte, North Carolina to a place to be determined based on North Carolina passing House Bill 2 this past March. House Bill 2 is often referred to as the "bathroom law" bill because of its requirement for individuals to use multiple occupancy bathroom and changing rooms in public facilities in the state of North Carolina based on their biological sex, not the sex with which they identify. Opponents of the Bill have argued this provision discriminates against transgender people; supporters have argued it will prevent sexual predators (particularly men) entering the other sex's bathroom and changing facilities unrestricted. The Bill regulates more than just this issue but from what I've seen, most dialog has centered around this provision.

House Bill 2 was passed in a special session of the North Carolina legislature on March 23. The special session was only called in response to the Charlotte City Council approving new legal protections for gay, lesbian and transgender people on February 22. These protections included prohibition of discrimination by businesses based on sexual orientation or gender identity. They also included the right of people to use group bathrooms and changing rooms based on their gender identity rather than their biological sex. House Bill 2 removed the protections enacted by the Charlotte City Council by declaring that requirements of House Bill 2 supersede any rules enacted by any local government within the State of North Carolina.

I get that the issue of gender identity is difficult for those of us without gender identity issues to understand. It's admittedly very difficult for me to understand and I'm trying to get my head wrapped around it. But there are two things here that are not difficult for me to understand about this situation. First, just sweeping an issue under the rug as if it doesn't exist is not the way to deal with controversial subjects. The City of Charlotte didn't enact new regulations without discussion. In fact, they rejected similar legislation just the previous year.

Second, I don't believe we should be legally be able to discriminate against anyone based on race, religion, color, national origin, age, sex, handicap, sexual orientation or gender identity. Why would we ever want to make it legal to discriminate based on any of these things? House Bill 2 lists each of these protections in the exact order I've listed them but omits the last two. It also says biological sex which I've chosen to change. By passing House Bill 2, North Carolina took away discrimination protection from some of its citizens; it also crippled the ability of any local government to enact such protections by directly targeting legislation passed by the City of Charlotte. It's strikes me as petty and mean and it has real negative consequences for some North Carolinians whom the legislature is supposed to be representing.

So in response, the NBA decided the State of North Carolina was not a place that they wanted to hold one of their marquee events. The NBA didn't have to do anything here. They could have sat back and said nothing or offered up a statement like they don't typically interfere in matters of government or something like that. But they didn't. Pulling the All-Star Game took some guts on the part of the NBA. They did something good here.

The day before the NBA took a stand in North Carolina, the WNBA took a different kind of stand regarding an issue that society is facing in the United States: the killing of black men by police. Or rather they took a stand regarding their players speaking out about that issue.

The Washington Mystics dressed in black yesterday night before a game vs. the Los Angeles Sparks.

Over the past two years, there have been a number of fairly high profile deaths of black men and boys at the hands of police in this country. I'm not intending to ignore anyone by making a list and I know there are a lot more out there but just in the interest of space the following killings stand out as most visible to me: Eric Garner in New York in July 2014 (Garner famously uttered the words "I can't breathe" while being restrained by police before later dying); Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO in August 2014; 12 year old Tamir Rice in Cleveland in November 2014; and Freddie Gray in Baltimore in August 2015.

Recently, there have been two more names added to that list: Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, LA and Philando Castile near St. Paul, MN. In both these cases either the events prior to the shooting, the actual shooting and/or the immediate aftermath was caught on a cell phone camera. Video always makes these sorts of situations appear so much more brutal and callous. Last week I watched The Drew, the documentary airing on Showtime about the famous basketball summer league in Los Angeles and was more shocked than ever at the tape of Rodney King being beaten by the police. That kind of inhumane brutality does not get better with age.

On Saturday, July 9, the members of the Minnesota Lynx decided to make a statement by wearing some t-shirts during pregame warmups. The shirts were printed with the message "Change Starts With Us. Justice And Accountability" on the front side and featured Sterling's and Castile's names on the back. Apparently that act caused the distribution of a memorandum within the WNBA reminding teams of the league's uniform guidelines, with which the Lynx shirts did not comply.

Some issues hit home worse than others and clearly the deaths of Sterling and Castile is one of those that deeply affected some within the WNBA. So over the next week or so, the New York Liberty, Indiana Fever and Phoenix Mercury decided to wear all black shirts with Adidas (the league's official outfitter) logos instead of their team logoed apparel during warmups before games to call continued attention to this issue.

The NBA and WNBA have to their credit displayed a recent willingness to allow some sort of unsanctioned on court pre-game response by players to social issues. No fines were issued when French players wore "Je Suis Charlie" shirts when terrorists slaughtered staffers of the Parisian magazine Charlie Hebdo in January 2015 nor did the league issue punishment for players with as high profiles as LeBron James for wearing "I Can't Breathe" shirts to draw attention to Eric Garner's death. Following their July 9 statement, the Lynx players were also not fined.

But apparently enough was enough for the WNBA and they reacted to the black shirt warmups with both praise and fines, at once putting themselves in a spot where they seem to be taking credit for a worthy social statement while punishing those who brought that same credit to the league. The official statement from the league included the sentence "We are proud of WNBA players' engagement and passionate advocacy for non-violent solutions to difficult social issues but expect them to comply with the league's uniform guidelines." The reaction from the league also included a $500 fine for each player involved.

Before you start to claim $500 is a small amount for a professional athlete to pay as a fine, consider that the current collective bargaining agreement contains provisions for salaries for WNBA players this season to range from $39,676 to $111,500. The $500 fine is between 0.44% and 1.3% of a player's salary. If LeBron James were fined 0.44% of his 2015-2016 salary, the fine would be $103,000. For wearing a t-shirt with nothing written on it. A $500 fine for someone making less than $40,000 is too much for this even if a fine was really required.

The statement here from the WNBA is horrible. And in writing that I'm referring to not just the written sentence which takes credit for having great employees before docking them some pay. This stuff matters to society and it hurts to know that it goes on and sometimes we do little to correct it. What some of the players did may have crossed a boundary for two weeks with the league's uniform supplier and sponsors who buy advertising space on the clothing but fining people is not the right response here. The WNBA screwed up here and should reverse its decision and give the money back. There are other ways to handle this. I'm disappointed in the league here.

I was at the Mystics game last night and it appears the team found a way to both protest what is happening in this country and comply with the WNBA's uniform guidelines. The WNBA still needs to return some money in my opinion.