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Worries over the WNBA

By Erin Buzuvis, Sudha Setty, and Kristine Newhall

Feminist blogger Nancy Goldstein at Salon.com is expressing concern over the financial stress facing the WNBA these days.

Due to the dissolution of the Houston Rockets and the mandated roster cuts on all other teams, the league is cutting approximately 20% of its players for the coming year. Goldstein notes the high hopes in 1997 (when the WNBA was launched) that Title IX had created professional opportunities for women athletes that had not previously existed. Those professional opportunities have a trickle down effect, allowing high school and college athletes to plan for a future in the sport that they love.

Goldstein seems pessimistic about the survival of the WNBA given the level of financial difficulty it's facing now; perhaps a best-case scenario is the WNBA taking a similar path as the NBA--having some rocky years in which its demise was predicted, and taking several decades to become a cohesive league that was on steadier financial ground.

Full post as published by Title IX Blog on February 09, 2009 (boomark / email).