I feel a little dirty about it, but I kind of couldn't take my eyes off of Jacob Bernstein's Daily Beast profile of Uchitel. Partly this is because she had a pretty interesting life, punctuated by tragedy. Her dad died of coke addiction, and her fiance died on 9/11. Then she fought his parents over his money, saying, "Money doesn't necessarily compensate, but in this society that's what we use to compensate. What else is there unless they're going to give me some knight in shining armor?" Then she married another guy, divorced after four months, and over time became "a concierge, a consiglière who made sure VIPs were being taken care of over the course of the night." Bernstein's description of Uchitel at this point in her life reads like an especially sleazy detective novel:

By the time [club owner Jason Strauss] became involved with Uchitel (and gave her a job, first at his club Tao in Vegas, then in New York at Marquee), the club wasn't truly exclusive, though it was certainly expensive.

The same description could be used to describe Uchitel. As far as her looks went, Uchitel was no runway model, but she was sexy in the slightly overprocessed way that her job demanded, with a taste for Christian Louboutin heels and a body that was, at least of late, widely believed to be surgically enhanced. When Uchitel's relationship with Strauss busted up, she dusted herself off and moved on to other late-night locales, where she earned a reputation for being savvy and hardworking, albeit with sharp elbows and a bit too much drama.

She was the kind of dame you could have, for a price. But as the golfer later learned, that price was far too high. Cue saxophones. Seriously, though, Rachel Uchitel's story actually gets even more noirish than this. Bernstein cites our brother site Deadspin's claim that Uchitel was not just a mistress, but in fact a procurer of women for Woods. A.J. Daulerio (of cheetah fame) wrote that "Uchitel's main job was to provide women for Tiger during his globetrotting excursions to various tournaments, charity functions and fuck-and-run private-jet weekends with his Fortune 500 party pals that he seemed to enjoy so much." He also quotes an anonymous source who says, "Rachel Uchitel works for Tiger the minute he gets off the plane wherever he is: from dinner, to photos, to nightclubs, to drugs, to girls - whatever he wants," and "her agenda is to land big clients - not big boyfriends."

Bernstein, however, goes on to dispute this account. He writes,

[S]ubsequent reporting from both the National Enquirer (which initially broke the story of Woods' affair with Uchitel) and The Daily Beast indicate she was more mistress than madam. "I don't think she was doing anything illegal," says the nightclub source. Adds the publicist with ties to the nightlife world: "She's not a person I'd want to hang out with, but she's not low end or really sleazy. I think she's basically a girl looking for a rich husband." Says a third source: "If she introduced him to women, I doubt it went much further than that [i.e. bringing them over to his table to make an introduction]."

So is Rachel Uchitel just "a girl looking for a rich husband," a knight in AmEx armor? Or is she in fact a businesswoman whose job it is to provide powerful men with willing women (a practice that, it's worth noting, is not illegal if the women aren't explicitly paid)? The answer matters for a couple of reasons. First, if Uchitel is, as Daulerio claims, one of many procurers of her ilk, then an especially sordid side of sports culture could be exposed. Daulerio writes,

Athletes have utilized the VIP service to engage in their affairs (and meet possible mistresses) for the sake of (supposed) privacy, philandering without the hassle of having to do any work themselves to land these women. It's a dirty business all around. But what to do now, since Tiger has gone and messed it up for a bunch of people who were pretty safe from prying eyes and camera lenses whenever they stepped out on their wives and girlfriends during Vegas weekends?

It's no surprise that pro athletes and other powerful men have lots of secret sex. And really, it's also not a shock that there could be an entire cottage industry devoted to ferrying women back and forth from the table at a club to an athlete's hotel room, all while making sure everyone involved stays discreet. But if that discretion breaks down — as it has for many of Woods's mistresses but not yet for Uchitel — then sex for powerful men might become a little more like sex for normal people. They might have to actually work to hide it.

The nature of Uchitel's relationship with Woods also has implications for how we view her. Woods's other mistresses haven't come off particularly well in the wake of the whole car-crash-golf-club episode. They've generally been portrayed as interchangeable dumbasses — Daulerio's word is "bubbleheads" — who thought Tiger would love them forever and who are now clinging to his reflected fame (to be fair, the reflected-fame part may be true). If Uchitel's main role was to sleep with Woods, she'll be tarred with this brush. But if, in fact, she was orchestrating a highly organized system to satisfy Woods's appetites and keep those appetites a secret, and if she holds behind her still-zipped lips not only his secrets but the secrets of other men who have used this system, then she's a lot more threatening. And the whole media narrative of the Woods affair — one of stupid women gulled by an unscrupulous man — takes an interesting new turn. Cue saxophones.

The Real Rachel Uchitel [Daily Beast]
Chaos In Tigerland: A Deadspin Investigation Into The Sexual Habits Of Pro Athletes [Deadspin]

He wonders how to reconcile the two contradictory feelings, saying:

Fighting is bad. But I couldn't help but be filled with pride if No. 07 were my daughter whomping the crud out of a male hockey player who tried to push her around. Is this the same sort of mixed signal like how guns are bad, but a gun in the hand of a woman is empowering?

Cook's feelings are quite common. Due to defined roles for women, it's tempting to respond to anything that makes women seem like they are breaking down barriers. Pride at seeing a girl "whomping the crud" out of male players symbolizes three different things.

The first thing is that she is good enough to be able to participate on the same field as boys. One of the arguments for gender segregated sports teams is that women cannot physically perform at the level of men, so the fact that a woman is playing in the same rink is a big deal.

Secondly, it demonstrates that she is a full participant in a space usually dominated by males - as the boys do, she does.

Third, it shows her willingness to defend that space (i.e. not take shit). The video contains graphic notations as to where she is being pushed around by the other players, and the fact that she was able to brush herself off and bring the fight right back does exhibit an indication of her being on equal footing.

Where Cook feels conflicted, however, is a longstanding item of contention. Does this encouragement of women to defy gender roles and fight for their space still hold when they're doing something potentially harmful to others? I am not familiar enough with ice hockey to know if there is a movement of any sort to stop fighting on the ice. From the few matches I've watched, I received the impression that altercations are to be expected.

Interestingly, the reaction this video prompts is different from the one soccer player Elizabeth Lambert received when she exhibited aggression on a field of peers. She was playing in a female- dominated soccer environment and her confrontational style of play (in addition to a ponytail yank, among other things) prompted her suspension earlier this year. But one of the major differences between the two situations is the context in which the behavior occurred.

In Player Number 7's case, she was well within the bounds and conventions of the game she played. With Lambert, her behavior was unsportwomanlike, and not really worth applauding - even if she was behaving just as aggressively as a male soccer player would.

Just because men get away with horrible behaviors, it doesn't mean we should applaud when women do the same. And so, in this case, Cook shouldn't feel conflicted - it's fine to be proud. But if player number 7 decided to take the fight off the ice, it wouldn't be commendable - just violent.

Girl Beats Up Boys In High School Hockey Fight [True/Slant]

Earlier: Violence In Sports: Suspended Soccer Player Speaks Out

[Hobart, Australia; December 6. Image via Getty]

HOBART, AUSTRALIA - DECEMBER 06: Nicola Earls of Western Australia competes in the Girls Under 17 Discus Throw during day three of the Australian All Schools Championships at the Domain Athletics Centre on December 6, 2009 in Hobart, Australia. (Photo by Mark Dadswell/Getty Images

[Gugulethu, South Africa; December 2. Image via Getty]

Girls play football in the Gugulethu township outside of Cape Town on December 2, 2009. With the draw for the World Cup 2010 turning Cape Town into a hive of activity, the townships are still untouched by the build up. AFP PHOTO / ALEXANDER JOE (Photo credit should read ALEXANDER JOE/AFP/Getty Images)

Economists Gordon Dahl and David Card looked at twelve years of football upsets — losses by teams predicted to win by three or more points. They found that during the regular season, such losses were correlated with an 8% increase in male-initiated partner violence in the hours immediately after the game. Female-on-male violence and child abuse were both unaffected by football losses, but violence against friends and neighbors increased by about the same percentage partner violence did. So essentially, men who just watched their team lose are more likely to beat up lovers and friends.

Catherine Rampell points out on the New York Times Economix blog that other surprising factors contribute to domestic violence, including holidays — partner violence rises 22% on Thanksgiving. And Slate's Ray Fisman cautions that football may not actually cause abuse:

[W]hile a tough loss for the home team may touch off abuse, that doesn't mean football is the root cause of postgame violence. More likely, the loss merely serves to set off an attack that was already waiting to happen. In a world without football, acts of abuse might merely get postponed, only to be brought on later by some other source of anger. In the long term, rather than blaming football, we may be best off focusing on addressing the more fundamental problems underlying abusive relationships.

Mentally healthy people in stable relationships probably don't suddenly assault their spouses because the Steelers lost. But it's worth examining the possible external triggers for abuse — triggers that have nothing to do with a woman being "difficult" or "asking for it." It's also worth noting that for everything that's great about sports fandom — a shared narrative, a sense of camaraderie, just plain fun — athletic culture can sometimes have an element of violence. Anyone who went to a Big Ten school has probably seen a drunken postgame brawl between pissed-off fans, and while this doesn't mean we should condemn football, we might do well to be a little more aware of its after-effects. Part of this awareness might involve encouraging some moderation in tailgating — coverage of Card and Dahl's research doesn't mention it, but I have to wonder if the increased abuse doesn't have something to do with fans getting drunk at 11 a.m. And of course, men and women alike need to speak out against domestic violence — as a group of Australian men are doing tomorrow in honor of the UN Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. But perhaps in addition to all this, some sports fans need an extra reminder that, as Fisman says, "it's only a game."

Football Upsets Increase Domestic Violence, Study Finds [NYT Economix Blog]
Illegal Contact [Slate]
Males Asked To Speak Out Against Violence [News.com.au]

The sexy pictures are part of a newly-launched campaign designed to appeal to both potential FSU basketball players and fans. The new website for the FSU team features many pictures like the one above. In the "meet the team" section, each player has her own profile page, which is overwhelmingly dominated by a shot of the athlete dressed in a satin dress, exiting a limo. Although some clutch basketballs - the only nod to the fact that these are basketball players, not debutantes - others are straight up glamor shots (the most obvious example is the image of Kayli Keough, guard/forward). The main page shows the entire team in a limo, perfectly coiffed and smiling at the camera. Yes, they look great. They fully live up to their claim of "Confidence. Strength. Beauty. We've got it all." But it is hard not to wonder, what does beauty have to do with anything?

This is the question posed by Jayda Evans. In her column for the Seattle Times, Evans examines the re-designed site for the No. 15 team, ultimately coming to the conclusion that the emphasis on femininity and beauty indicates an underlying fear of being viewed as anything other than straight. She mentions the documentary Training Rules, about former Penn State coach Rene Portland, who allegedly had just three rules for her players: No drinking, no drugs, and absolutely no lesbians. Portland may have been more explicit about her homophobia, but the FSU website reveals a certain desire to move away from the actual game - where players are sweaty, strong and accomplished, perhaps frighteningly so - towards a much more polished image of female athletes as celebrities first, players second. Evans points out that attempt to make female athletes appear "powerful, beautiful, strong and accomplished" is just another way to gloss over the fact that they are being overtly feminized. For Evans, "beautiful" is translated as "attractive to men," and implicitly, heterosexual.

In a press release for the newly launched website, FSU coach Sue Semrau explains their decision to depict their players en route to some fancy shindig: "We feel it is important to set ourselves apart as much as we can... We wanted to have a product that would stand out to the people we are trying to reach." The "product" being not only the game, but the individual players. At Carnal San Francisco, editor Tim McElreavy suggests that Semrau's attempt to "sell" the game reveals a disheartening focus on the bottom line: "While it would be naïve to believe that college sports isn't or shouldn't be concerned with the bottom line, such words, especially from a coach, really seem to instrumentalize the players' achievements. Add to this business rhetoric the stereotype of the pretty woman, and women's sports marketing moves further and further away from the actual sport," he writes.

And to drive home this point, take a look at the website for the FSU men's team, where the players are portrayed in a rather different light. There is no doubt that this is about the "actual sport." Their website features pictures of the players in action. Their faces are contorted into grimaces of concentration while sweat pours off their bodies. Okay, it's not unattractive, but it's also not purposefully sexy. The emphasis is on the game, not the dolled-up players. While FSU women have to be "sold" and "appeal" to the public, the men's team can safely coast on the knowledge that people watch them play for reasons other than their sex appeal.

Women's Hoops Media Guides And Web Sites Getting Sexier [Seattle Times]
Glam Photos Show The Ugly Side Of Women's Basketball [Carnal San Francisco]
Glammed Up B'Ball Stars Spark Uproar [Newser]
Florida State University Women's Basketball [Official Site]

Butler, feminist philosopher and author of Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity writes persuasively about the flaws in the IAAF's gender-testing system:

[I]f we consider that this act of ‘sex determination' was supposed to be collaboratively arrived at by a panel that included ‘a gynecologist, an endocrinologist, a psychologist and an expert on gender' (why wasn't I called!?), then the assumption is that cultural and psychological factors are part of sex-determination, and that no one of these ‘experts' could come up with a definitive finding on his or her own (presuming that binary gender holds). This co-operative venture suggests as well that sex-determination is decided by consensus and, conversely, where there is no consensus, there is no determination of sex. Is this not a presumption that sex is a social negotiation of some kind? And are we, in fact, witnessing in this case a massive effort to socially negotiate the sex of Semenya, with the media included as a party to the deliberations?

Media outlets have generally used the phrase "gender testing" to describe the ordeal the IAAF put Semenya through, but many have pointed out an inaccuracy in the terminology — if sex is biological, and gender is socially constructed, then what was really at issue was Semenya's sex. However, as Butler explains, the testing appeared to be an effort to socially construct the runner's biological sex via the opinions of a panel of "experts." The bizarreness of this approach shows how poorly understood sex still is. And the sheer number of experts the IAAF relied on (maybe they should've called Butler) speaks to the fact that the group really hasn't arrived at a single standard of what makes someone "female enough" to compete. Butler says they should simply decouple the question of femaleness from that of eligibility. She writes,

[W]e can invoke certain standards for admission to compete under a particular gender category without deciding whether or not the person unequivocally ‘is' that category. If the standard turns out to be, for instance, hormone levels, and it is decided that one cannot exceed certain levels of testosterone to play in women's sports, then a competitor could still be a ‘woman' in a cultural and social sense and, indeed, in some biological senses as well, but she would not qualify to compete under those standards. [...] standards for qualification do not have to be the same as final decisions about sex, and these can certainly be distinct from larger and overlapping questions of gender.

If only the IAAF had adopted such a sensible approach — focusing only on whether Semenya could run and not on "what" she "was" — perhaps the media wouldn't have felt so free to define Semenya's sex for her. But few involved in the case have been sensible. Ariel Levy, writing in The New Yorker, quotes bioethicist Alice Domurat Dreger, who describes the IAAF's approach to sex testing as "a kind of ‘I know it when I see it' policy." And she talks to Athletics South Africa president Leonard Chuene, who not only lied about authorizing sex tests for Semenya, but allowed her to compete in Berlin against others' advice, even though he knew the test results were "not good" and scandal was likely. Chuene sounds fantastically self-absorbed when he tells Levy,

If I will do this, it's ‘Why did you withdraw her?' If I did not, ‘Why did you allow her to run?' Whatever way you look at it, I'm judged. I'm judged!

He adds,

This thing has given her more opportunity! Everybody knows her. The world is out there to say, ‘Your problems are our problems.' Imagine if I had not let her win!

Chuene's words about "opportunity" are pretty insensitive, especially given that Semenya has indicated she's uncomfortable with her notoriety. Still, her story has inspired more public discussion of intersex conditions, and it might encourage some people to examine their preconceptions about sex and gender. Levy includes in her piece an interesting discussion of various movements within the intersex community. Some object to queer and/or transgender people aligning themselves with those born intersex, while others go even further, preferring to describe themselves as having "disorders of sex development." Levy writes that "they want disorders of sex development to be treated like any other physical abnormality: something for doctors to monitor but not to operate on, unless the patient is in physical discomfort or danger." Whether intersex conditions are indeed "disorders" or simply points on a non-binary gender spectrum is an interesting question, and Semenya's ordeal may have done some good if it brings this issue into the open.

But what has it done to Semenya herself? Former ASA official Wilfred Daniels says, "now her life is over," and many others have had similarly dark predictions for her future. However, at the conclusion of her piece, Levy talks to Semenya herself:

I asked her if she would talk to me, not about the tests or Chuene but about her evolution as an athlete, her progression from Limpopo to the world stage. She shook her head vigorously. "No," she said. "I can't talk to you. I can't talk to anyone. I can't say to anyone how I feel or what's in my mind."

I said I thought that must suck.

"No," she said, very firmly. Her voice was strong and low. "That doesn't suck. It sucks when I was running and they were writing those things. That sucked. That is when it sucks. Now I just have to walk away. That's all I can do." She smiled a small, bemused smile. "Walk away from all of this, maybe forever. Now I just walk away." Then she took a few steps backward, turned around, and did.

Despite all she's been through, Semenya appears to have more dignity than any of those who have tried to test her or speak for her. Her running career may be over, but her life is not.

Wise Distinctions [London Review Blog]
Either/Or [The New Yorker]

The entire gender testing process had been likely distressing for Semenya and confusing for everyone else — while news was leaked in September that she had both male and female characteristics, the IAAF's official report on her gender tests was expected either Friday or February 20. Now the group says in a statement,

The IAAF will not comment upon the medical aspects of Caster Semenya's case. There will be no discussion of Caster Semenya's case at the forthcoming IAAF Council Meeting. ... No further comment will be made on this subject until further notice.

Athletics South Africa elaborates,

The implications of the scientific findings on Caster's health and life going forward will be analysed by Caster and she will make her own decision on her future. Whatever she decides, ours is to respect her decision.

If only this had been everyone's attitude all along, Semenya might have been spared a lot of public embarrassment. ASA adds that she will keep her medal and prize money from the August world championships, because she is "innocent of any wrong." They have also asked the IAAF to apologize for its handling of Semenya's case, but the IAAF responds that it wasn't responsible for making the details public. In fact, they say they are investigating the behavior of ASA president Leonard Chuene after he lied about whether Semenya had been gender-tested before the world championships. Chuene has resigned from the IAAF and been suspended from South Africa's Olympic governing body.

In its statement, ASA says, "there will be no public announcement of what the panel of scientists has found. We urge all South Africans and other people to respect this professional ethical and moral way of doing things." But if everyone had been professional, ethical, and moral, Semenya never would have been subjected to public speculation about her sex organs. Hopefully the IAAF's decision will give her back a measure of privacy, but those who violated this privacy in the first place still have a lot to answer for.

South African Runner Still Undergoing Sex-Verification Tests [NYT]
Caster Semenya Found 'Innocent Of Any Wrong' To Retain 800m Gold Medal [Guardian]
Semenya To Keep Gold Medal - SA Ministry [CNN]

[Khartoum, Sudan; November 17. Image via Getty]

A Sudanese woman smiles after getting tickets for the World Cup qualifier football match between Egypt and Algeria from the Egyptian embassy in Khartoum on November 17, 2009. Thousands of Algerian and Egyptian fans descended into Khartoum for the decisive match between the two Arab rivals as Sudanese police went on high alert after weekend unrest. AFP PHOTO/KHALED DESOUKI (Photo credit should read KHALED DESOUKI/AFP/Getty Images)

[Saas-Fee, Switzerland; November 5. Image via Getty]

Australia's Torah Jane Bright competes to win the women's half-pipe Snowboarding FIS World Cup final event on November 5, 2009 in Saas-Fee, southern Switzerland. Bright won the event ahead of China's Xuetong Cai, second and France's Sophie Rodriguez, third. AFP PHOTO / FABRICE COFFRINI (Photo credit should read FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images)

The player in question, Elizabeth Lambert, punches one player in the back and yanks another player to the ground by her ponytail.

Radar Online calls their clip of the incident "Watch Elizabeth Lambert, The Dirtiest Player in Women's Soccer." Adding:

Lambert's aggressive, dirty play was displayed on ESPN's national stage during her team's 1-0 loss Thursday night to Brigham Young University, and the results — unlike her — weren't pretty.

See, it's incredibly important to comment on an athlete's looks! Especially if she is female. The Radar piece also claims that:

[the] attractive 20-year-old blond displays some of the most violent behavior we've ever seen on any level of sports.

O RLY? More violent than boxing? Or MMA? Or does it only seem violent and newsworthy because women are involved, and they're not acting like delicate princesses? If men were in this clip, would it even have made it onto SportsCenter?

True/Slant's Dundas makes an excellent point:

Thousands of women devote millions of hours to their collegiate [soccer] careers, only to be overshadowed by one semi-psychotic outburst from a… thugette. But, you know, such is life.

Girl-on-Girl Violence Makes Women's Soccer a SportsCenter Sensation [True/Slant]
BYU Fights Off New Mexico, 1-0 [ESPN]
Watch Elizabeth Lambert, The Dirtiest Player In Women's Soccer [Radar Online]

[New York, November 1. Image via Getty]

NEW YORK - NOVEMBER 1: A group of Hasidic Jewish girls watch the runners of the 40th ING New York City Marathon pass through the Williamsburg section of the borough of Brooklyn on November 1, 2009 in New York City. Meb Keflezighi who won New York City Marathon was the first American champion to do so since 1982 in the time 2:09.15. More than 40,000 people participated in the event. (Photo by Afton Almaraz/Getty Images)

[New York, November 1. Image via Getty]

NEW YORK - NOVEMBER 01: Runners compete in the 40th ING New York City Marathon on November 1, 2009 in the Queens borough of New York City. (Photo by Jared Wickerham/Getty Images)

The president, after all, is an unabashed First Guy's Guy. Since being elected, he has demonstrated an encyclopedic knowledge of college hoops on ESPN, indulged a craving for weekend golf, expressed a preference for adopting a "big rambunctious dog" over a "girlie dog" and hoisted beer in a peacemaking effort.

He presides over a White House rife with fist-bumping young men who call each other "dude" and testosterone-brimming personalities like Rahm Emanuel, the often-profane chief of staff; Lawrence Summers, the brash economic adviser; and Robert Gibbs, the press secretary, who habitually speaks in sports metaphors.

The technical foul over the all-male game has become a nagging concern for a White House that has battled an impression dating to the presidential campaign that Mr. Obama's closest advisers form a boys' club and that he is too frequently in the company of only men - not just when playing sports, but also when making big decisions.

This weekend, foreign policy aide Chief Domestic Policy Adviser* Melody Barnes was invited to the party, becoming the first woman to join the golf outings since Obama became President.

Most of the women in the administration quoted in the NYT article didn't feel as though Obama was intentionally excluding them, noting:

In interviews, five women who work in the White House or advised officials there described the culture with more of a collective eye-roll than any real sense of grievance or discomfort. One junior aide, who like the other women spoke on the condition of anonymity because of concerns about appearing publicly critical, said that the "sports-fan thing at the White House" could become "annoying" and that her relative indifference to athletics could be mildly alienating. And while this is not uncommon in any workplace, sports bonding can afford a point of entree with the boss. [...]

Other women in the administration say that any discussion of White House culture should account for how politics has long been dominated by men but is now more inclusive. Ms. Dunn, who had to take a typing test three decades ago to work for a campaign, rejects the notion of a boys' club. She calls the Obama administration "refreshingly un-self-conscious" about matters of equality, maybe to a point where they neglected the "optics" of the all-male basketball game.

Ms. Dunn said that she recently hosted a baby shower for an administration official and that no men from the office were invited. She is comfortable with that - just as she is fine with never playing basketball with the president.

"That is just part of the culture here that I am excluded from," she said. "And I don't care."

So if they don't care, should we?

I think so. I can definitely understand how many women may not be interested in playing sports at work; however, having read dozens of books, hundreds of articles, and attended conferences on how women and minorities advance in the workplace, this question shifts a little. It isn't quite a question of opportunity, as much as it is a question of access. And doing things like going golfing with the boss are part of the traditional path to access. This is one of the opportunities for your boss or potential client to get to know you outside of a business capacity, which may make a crucial difference in decisions about projects and promotions.

The Obama Administration has shown its commitment to women on many different levels, so I'm willing to assume the best on this count. But this recent attention is actually a valuable reminder to watch the traditional paths to power. After all, adequate representation is only half of the battle - do women hold enough clout and access to make major decisions and to push forward their own ideas?

*Correction - Melody Barnes' title was misidentifed in one of the source articles from this morning, and I copied that title over here. I regret the error.

Man's World at White House? No Harm, No Foul, Aides Say [NY Times]
A First For Obama: Woman Joins Presidential Golf Outing [Washington Post]

As evidence that the WNBA is still struggling, Levin cites the demise of the Houston Comets, and the fact that the Phoenix Mercury had to give away free tickets in order to fill the stadium for its championship series. The league is also a target of insults. Levin writes,

As the finals wound down, ESPN.com's most-popular writer, Bill Simmons, mocked his own network's coverage of women's hoops. "Tweets you won't see tonight," Simmons wrote. "Flip over to ESPN2, the 4th quarter of the climactic WNBA Finals game is on right now!" A few months earlier, Simmons encouraged one of his readers to go to a WNBA game wearing a T-shirt reading "EXPECT LAYUPS." And last month, the desperate-to-be-edgy Foxsports.com video series "Cubed" played host to a debate about which activity was more palatable, women's hoops or gay porn. (Fox Sports later cut that bit, explaining in a statement that it had been "experimental.")

Leaving aside the question of what's more "palatable," sexism or homophobia, it remains uncertain whether the WNBA will ever be able to pay for itself. As of 2007, Levin says, the league was losing between 1.5 and 2 million dollars a year. Explaining why, he writes,

The fundamental problem is that the sports world's primary spenders-adult men-have never shown much interest in watching women play basketball. For all the people like John Wooden who enthuse over the superior fundamentals of the women's game, there are thousands more who focus on what women can't do on the court. Dunking is not all there is to basketball-as your high school coach used to say, a slam is worth just as many points as a layup. But it's also true that nobody pays $1,000 for courtside seats to watch a layup line.

Of course, the lack of slam dunks may not be the only problem — there are probably many men who simply don't want to watch women play basketball. Fox's "gay porn" comparison may be revealing. The WNBA is popular with the gay and lesbian communities (as Levin mentions later), and some men who consider themselves red-blooded American sports fans may be uncomfortable with this association. Other RBASFs may not want to watch women play a sport they think of as masculine (as opposed to, say, gymnastics). Slurs about the "manliness" of female athletes were around long before Caster Semenya, and some viewers may think of WNBA players as like men, but worse. While some fans probably disdain the WNBA on gameplay alone, it's important to note that there may be other issues at work here.

Levin says the solution for the WNBA isn't to resolve these issues, but to concentrate on its base:

The audience for the WNBA is, by various accounts, between 60 percent and 80 percent female. The league also has a major following in the gay and lesbian community, a community that some franchises court and others aggressively alienate. If the WNBA focuses primarily on these fans, they can still have a large enough customer base to survive and succeed.

According to Levin, the WNBA will never score big TV or merchandising deals like its male counterpart does, and must instead maximize ticket sales by appealing to existing fans and possibly moving "toward smaller markets that are more likely to come out and support a professional women's basketball team." He cites as a model Women's Pro Soccer, a "grassroots-focused league that appears committed to sensible growth" and whose "core audience is 8-to-18-year-old girls who play soccer, their families, and 'fitness-minded women in their 20s, 30s, and 40s.'" The idea of the WNBA succeeding on female support alone, simply ignoring male RBASFs, has a certain sisters-are-doing-it-for-themselves appeal. And Levin's statement that "you're more likely to succeed by marketing your product to people who already like it than by trying to win over people who don't" makes good business sense. Still, it's sad that in a country where so many women watch men play sports, we have to accept that men will never watch women.

How To Fix The WNBA [Slate]

[Paarl, South Africa; October 16. Image via Getty]

PAARL, SOUTH AFRICA: OCTOBER 16: Mignon du Preez from South Africain action during the first one day international women's cricket match between South Africa and West Indies at Boland Park on October 16, 2009 in Paarl, South Africa. (Photo by Carl Fourie/Gallo Images/Getty Images)

[Anaheim, September 28. Image via Getty]

ANAHEIM, CA - SEPTEMBER 28: Fans of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim hold a sign as they celebrate winning the American League West title inthe baseball game against Texas Rangers at Angel Stadium on September 28, 2009 in Anaheim, California. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

It's not as if baseball is suffering from a lack of women in the stands; as Stephanie Sy of ABCNews notes, "female fans make up more than 45 percent of MLB fans, more than any other professional sport." So the focus on women, it seems, is less about attracting them to the sport and more about cashing in on their fandom by offering "female friendly" programs and perks.

Dodgers CEO Jamie McCourt, a woman, has set up a program called "Dodgers WIN" which stands for "Women's Initiative Network," and bills itself as "a network of initiatives designed to bring women closer to the game of baseball, and to integrate baseball into women's lifestyles." So far, the program has offered the aforementioned yoga night, and Stitch N' Pitch session, and according to Sy, "at all home games, a WIN tent is erected where soap stars and other celebrities make appearances." There are also Dodgers WIN broadcasts every Wednesday, hosted by Jeannie Zelasko, that cater specifically to women.

Does this strike anyone else as a pink hat on steroids? Sure, I understand that teams (and advertisers) would want to reach out to women, but it's a bit insulting that they think female baseball fans need yoga nights, female-specific broadcasts (whatever that means) and soap opera stars to get excited about the big game. I don't go to a baseball game to do yoga or knit or meet the cast of Days of Our Lives, I go to a baseball game to watch a baseball game.

If the Dodgers, and the MLB, really want to "integrate baseball into women's lifestyles," perhaps they should recognize that for many women, going to the game, drinking a beer, and crying for hours on end (I'm a Mariners fan) is already a perfectly acceptable lifestyle, and we don't need to be pandered to to head to the park and have a good time. McCourt appears to have good intentions, in that she really does seem to want to get women to feel more connected to the game, but a quote she gave Sy, "I always say that behind every man is a woman with her checkbook," makes me a bit wary.

McCourt says that the money brought in by WIN might "eventually be donated to women's charities," and if that's the case, it's a horse of a different color, in that I wouldn't mind a night dedicated to raising money for a good cause. But until then, I'm skeptical of the real motivations here, and I fear it's just another attempt to slap a pink label on something and sell it to "the ladies." Sometimes, the best way to reach your fans is to just treat them like fans, regardless of their gender.

L.A. Dodgers Cater To Loyal Female Fan Base [ABCNews]
[Dodgers WIN]

[Philadelphia, September 20. Image via Getty]

PHILADELPHIA - SEPTEMBER 20: Fans of the Philadelphia Eagles cheer during a game against the New Orleans Saints during their game at Lincoln Financial Field on September 20, 2009 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images)