WNBA - Your Thoughts

My wife got the family 6 free box tickets to tonight's Lynx game. The ONLY reason I'm going is for the sweet seats, free beer, time with the family, and free food.

But I could be wrong. There could be some fantastic fundamental basketball going on. I might discover the joy of watching ten women struggle to get a handle on something other than the latest Doc Johnson product.

Tell me what I should look for. Tell me what I can do to enjoy this evening.

All comments starting with 'nappy' should not be written.

 

I saw on the frontpage of yahoo that some girl performed a dunk. It was one dunk. It was on the front page of yahoo. They used the word rare. They got next.

 

Well I get many Wolves tickets through my GF's dad (a season ticket holder) and from what she has said in comparison to the two teams is there will be 1/20th the crowd and the games suck! Have fun with the family and the drinks at least you get to get out of the house tonight.

 

Yes. I saw this, too. I laughed.

But tell me what I WILL like.

 

.....

 

seeing girls that can probably bench more than you?

 

They probably eat more box them him as well.

 

nappy girls running around getting thier nappy hair in each others face makes me sick. WNBA makes me wanna take a nappy

 

Ouch. Sick burn.

 

Bring a book or your PC with an aircard and drink mightily.

My wife played basketball in college and even she can't stand *watching* women's basketball of any level.

I'd watch women's soccer before a WNBA. Also, I'd rather snap one off using 80 grit before watching women's soccer if that gives you any perspective.:eek3:

Off to pound some nappy dugout.

 

It was pretty terrible.

My first hint that things were not going to be good was while walking in. A few months ago we got the same deal with T-Wolves tickets and the area was crazy on the way in to the game. All the skyways and sidewalks were jammed with folks and finding parking was not so easy even in the big ramps.

Last night I drove right in, found a spot, walked through an empty skyway and right in to the Target Center. But the doors next to the ramp and skyway weren't open. We had to walk all the way around to the 1st Avenue side of the Center because those were the only doors open. MY best guess as to why they were closed is 'not enough patrons to justify paying the security monkeys.'

We had our 'VIP' tickets so we got in to the place pretty quickly but it wouldn't have mattered since there were only 2 people in front of us in the normal ticket lines. There were no radio stations broadcasting from the game, no special vendors, no promotions, no interviews no nothing. The giant corridors of the Target Center were almost empty. Christian rock concerts that occur in the Target Center have a bigger impact than the Lynx.

We got up to the Suite Level and it was BARREN. We walked from suite 1 down to Suite 24 and I only saw 2 or 3 occupied Suites. We got in to ours and I quickly cracked a Summit Pale Ale and started eating a chicken sandwich. Then I walked out to the seats and took around the stadium. As the 5-minute warning buzzer went off there were less than 1,000 people (I refuse to use the term 'fan' to describe them because as far as I could tell no one really cared about the game) in the Target Center.

The floor seats were all occupied but the rest of the place was a ghost town. The lower-level seating was filled to about 1 person for every three seats. The upper-half of the lower level was about 1/5 full. The middle level had a smattering of folks and the upper levels were roped off. There are 68 box-suites in the Target Center and maybe 10 had people in them. Ours was full because the organizer for my wife's company ran around the office yesterday handing out tickets to anyone that would grab them.

The 'Entertainment'
Painful. Absolutely painful. With only less than 1,000 people to absorb the blasts from the sound system the Target Center gets absolutely deafening. And the entertainers only make it worst. The first thing I noticed was that there was an actual DJ spinning vinyl in the corner. He went by the moniker DJ Mad Mardigan. I guess the name 'Mad Mardigan' should have tipped me off that something was amiss. What DJ with an ounce of street-cred would title himself after Val Kilmer's character in Willow? The answer - A DJ with street-cred wouldn't be DJ-ing for a WNBA team in Minnesota.

Oh, and he sucked. I'm no hip-hop-ophile but when you mix 80's dance tunes to late 90's techno/trance (whatever you call it.) I'm pretty sure the beats should match up. And these layered tracks are supposed to blend somewhat seamlessly, right? Two words, Mad Mardigan: Aural Trainwreck. I'm not a fan of either genre (80s hits and 90s 'electronica') but I do have an appreciation for well-mixed music. This guy couldn't mix pudding. And why do you need an assistant (I'm guessing that HE was the street cred) who does nothing more than stand next to you hopping up and down and cheese for the camera?

The Announcer:
Loud. Loud. Loud. Loud. Loud. Loud. Loud. Loud. Loud. Loud. Referred to the Lynx as the Timberwolves. Loud. Loud. Loud. Loud. Wore sunglasses inside. Loud. Loud. Loud. Loud. Loud. Loud. Loud. Loud. Danced to Mad Mardigan's 'music'. Loud. Loud. Loud. Loud. TURN DOWN THE ****ING SOUND SYSTEM YOU APES!

The game:
Bad college basketball. That's what it was. Bad college basketball. Sloppy, poorly executed, bad college basketball. Very little flair or panache and when there was something that could be considered 'exciting' you quickly realized that it was one of their only tricks. Example: The no look pass. The Lynx did this early in the game. I was pretty impressed with it even though the receiver kind of bobbled the ball. That is until I saw the EXACT same pattern played out a few minutes later.

Same pattern, same ball-carrier, same receiver, the ball carrier was staring down the same exact 'lane' she had stared down the last time and released the ball at the exact same moment and the receiver was in the exact same place. Of course this time the receiver took a basketball to the face. You need more practice, girls. The other 'play' I saw was the spinning lay-up. One of the Lynx players had this as her specialty and every opportunity she had to do one she would spin up for a lay-up. Less then 2 total feet from ball to basket and her shot percentage was below .500. Practice.

Overall I saw a lot of dropped balls, a lot of really physical playing without a lot of payoff (lots of struggling but the ball didn't go anywhere except maybe into the stands) poor ball-handling skills, and poor shooting.

Summary:
All in all it was worth the time to go down there only because I got to spend an evening with my family out of the house for free. If you don't have kids and free tickets I wouldn't go. It's just so disappointing to go to a venue where some great games have been played and see something 'professional' done so poorly. If I want to keep my daughter from playing basketball so she focuses on something else I will take her to a Lynx game. "See, honey? This is what you have to look forward to even if you're WILDLY successful. Rolling around on the floor fighting for a ball with a girl I nicknamed 'Mastodon' all for the entertainment of less than 1,000 people who got free tickets. I recommend you focus on studying to be a stripper or a janitor. Both of those occupations will leave you with more self-respect than a WNBA player."

 

Hey, at least they had Summit! :yumyum:

 

I told you so.:laugh:

 

Thanks for the lulz, nice write up.

 

wnba....waste of money

 

I wonder how much money they lose each game paying all the employees...and for all the electricity they use.

 

Bahahah F'n MadMartigan! He should have picked BurgleCutt.

 

This was my main thought. Between players, coaches, janitors, security, vendors, ushers, etc. there were probably as many people involved with the game as there were spectators. How in the world do they make money?

Sure, there are advertisers (Budget/Avis is the main sponsor of the Lynx plus all the other sponsors) but I'm guessing that about 50% of the people at that game as spectators came for free. So you have 500 regular paying customers and 500 discounted tickets (the ones the customers got for free. Someone paid something for those). Joe Blow can get a seat, a pop, and a pizza for $15. Assume that half the paying people are Joe Blow. That's $3750. The other half will pay up to $250/ticket with floor seats running about double that. I'm going to give the organizers some credit and call those at $100/ticket on average. $25000. The box seats and such actually make the arena a lot of cash so we'll call that $25000 because companies pay for those whether or not they are full. I know that my wife's employer leases their box for a set number of games. Another $5-10,000 for sundry other seats. So by my half-assed guess there is only MAYBE $65,000 in ticket revenue coming in at a Lynx game with 1,000 attendees. Peanuts.

Now factor in utilities, salaries, food costs, water, etc. and my guess is that they are BARELY scraping by. The people that run these things are smart folks and if it was a perpetual money-loser it wouldn't keep going but my guess is that the profits on a game are razor thin.

Is the WNBA subsidized by the NBA? I'm guessing it has to be or it wouldn't have survived this long.

 

All I know is that there better not be an WNHL in the future or I'm going to /myself

 

I have an old friend who is a rookie in the wnba. She's doing very well stats wise, but hardly making enough money to get by... I was thinking of going to a game if she ever played at the Target Center, but I'll re-think that now..