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]

[Indianapolis, October 7. Image via Getty]

INDIANAPOLIS - OCTOBER 07: Lin Dunn the Head Coachof the Indiana Fever talks with Briann January #20 during the WNBA Finals game 4 against The Phoenix Mercury at Conseco Fieldhouse on October 7, 2009 in Indianapolis, Indiana. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)

[Washington, D.C., July 27. Image via Getty]

US President Barack Obama, holding a commemorative basketball and Obama jersey, stands alongside members of the WNBA championship Detroit Shock basketball team during a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, July 27, 2009. AFP PHOTO / Saul LOEB (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

According to the New York Times:

Parker, 23, is determined to buck the conventional wisdom that women can fulfill their potential as professional athletes and as parents as long as they tackle their lives like a to-do list, crossing one item off before starting on the next.

"I'm always the type of person that wants to prove people wrong," she said. "I just want to come back and show that you can be even stronger than before."

Parker's steely resolve and determination are admirable, and she has a husband, a nanny and family members to help her out. Additionally, her coworkers can relate: Five other team members on the Sparks are mothers — including Lisa Leslie — and Carla Christofferson, the Sparks' 41-year-old co-owner, is pregnant.

It's frustrating that Parker has to say she wants to come back "even stronger than before." She's a talented athlete, but clearly feels like she has something to prove. While it's true that Parker hasn't played a competitive game in 10 months, it's not like she suffered a debilitating injury. But her words are an answer to widely-held notions of how motherhood changes a woman — how people expect different, or possibly less of you, especially when it comes to your job. And, even more important: It speaks to the expectations this new mother has placed on herself.

Diapers and Jump Shots: Player Has Her Hands Full [NY Times]

Earlier: Juggling Pregnancy & Career Without Dropping The Ball
Are Women Having Babies Earlier Because They Take Their Careers For Granted?

Hill continues, "We treat girl fights like a novelty, when they shouldn't be seen as such. News flash to those still using sticks to create fire: Female athletes are just as competitive as men and when some are pushed to the edge, they'll exhibit the same lack of control." Salon's sports columnist King Kaufman agrees that the fight could ultimately be a positive for the WNBA, but for slightly different reasons. "The old truism says there's no such thing as bad publicity, and people who don't normally talk about the WNBA are talking a lot about it this week," Kaufman says. "[Though] it's worth noting that a big part of why Malice at the Palace II is getting so much attention is because it was so rare. As a brawl, it wasn't much. Ron Artest can get in a worse fight than that when he's alone in a room. But it stood out because that sort of thing isn't supposed to happen in the WNBA, land of role models."

And honestly? I agree with both of them. I've been watching men's basketball for over a decade, and if a similar fight went down in the NBA, nary an eyelash would be batted. It would occupy maybe an inch of column space. Why should the WNBA be held to some pristine standard? Is it because people are so freaked out by angry women, and even more freaked out by angry black women? And the argument that people are reacting to this fight the same way they react to any fight in sports is hogwash. Take this touchy-feely commentary from ESPN's Mechelle Voepel, who wonders about the emotional motivation of Plenette Pierson, who was one of the main brawlers in the scuffle. "Why…did Pierson seem to be so angry all the time? It's something only Pierson and those closest to her can probably answer," Voepel said. When men in sports get into fights, no one tries to psychoanalyze them or explore their "feelings."

In post-game commentary, Lisa Leslie, who was accidentally shoved to the ground by assistant coach Rick Mahorn, said she was disappointed about the fight because, "As a role model this is not the way I want to represent myself. I'm a mom, this is not the way I want to represent myself in front of my daughter." While Leslie is right on one level, the thing about role models is that they aren't infallible. One fight in the over ten years of the WNBA? I don't think Leslie's or anyone else's role model status is in question.

WNBA Brawl: Bad, But Good? [Salon]
In Real Life, Female Athletes Lose Their Temper, Too [ESPN]
"Bad Girls" Mind-set, Pierson And Parker A Volatile Mix [ESPN]

Susan Ziegler, a sports psychologist, thinks that the focus on the players' appearances isn't healthy for the athletes, as it diminishes their legitimacy. "Once you begin to worry about how the person looks as opposed to how she plays, you've crossed the line into dangerous play," Ziegler said to the Trib. "We're not really focused on marketing them as athletes but as feminine objects."

We live in a looksist society — you can be sure that Michael Jordan made so much money on endorsements not only because he was the best player in the NBA, but also because he was gorgeous. You think Larry Bird made anywhere near that kind of dough? But the WNBA's assumption that the perceived attractiveness of their players will draw men — and otherwise disinterested females — to the court seems foolhardy. Whenever I hear a man complain about women's basketball, he's whining that the quality of play is somehow inferior to that in the NBA, not that the players are "ugly". The Chicago Tribune asked Ziegler for advice on how to market Parker, and she offered, "As a pure athlete... As the top athlete in the country. Leave it at that."

WNBA Offers Advice To Rookies [Chicago Tribune]

Earlier: Tennessee Lady Vols Trounce Stanford To Win NCAA Title

But seriously. I started playing soccer at age five, and spent much of my adolescence viciously chasing after other girls on the field hockey pitch, wielding a wooden stick. And through all of that time I was mostly focusing on what my body could do — not what it looked like.
There is nothing in adult life that quite equals the pure elation of scoring a goal, which in itself is a kind of weightlessness. If only American men could support women in sports as the Zambian men are apparently supporting Esther (From the Christian Science Monitor article: "One young Zambian man shouted with a smile upon seeing an American leave Phiri's Saturday night victory - 'Zambia is strong!'")

This is not to claim that Zambia is some hotbed of enlightenment, Esther definitely experienced a lot of road blocks as a female athlete, but American men are particularly dismissive of women in sports. The University of Iowa painted the locker room for visiting teams pink, allegedly to make their opponents "feel like sissies." Meanwhile, the number of female coaches in college sports has reached an all-time low. The WNBA has never had a profitable season, and dudes all over the interwebs deride the league because its members can't slam dunk.

So what's the solution? If women start watching sports in droves, then the advertising dollars would follow, and with the ad $$ comes the power. But fuck, as much as I love playing sports, I hate watching sports. Um, maybe we should just get Venus and Serena Williams to buy us a stadium or something.

In Zambia, Woman Boxer Emerges As A New Role Model [Christian Science Monitor]
Number of female coaches in women's sports shrinks to all-time low [LA Times]

This week, daytime TV was stricken with a nasty case of the reruns. Even after I lauded The View for keeping it fresh all summer, B. Dubs went and gave the ladies this week off, leaving no reason for a lot of us to get up before noon. So the only View clip we have for you is from last Friday when Molly Shannon wore a pair of coochie cutters that Babs was apparently keen on. Other clippy goodness includes Tyra all up in Queen Latifah's grill and Oprah's interior designer Nate Berkus, the GILF (gay I'd like to fuck), on the topic of sperm donation and Halle Berry (not to be deposited in any of my orifices, unfortch).

It's gonna be an all-Tyra recap here, since The View was all repeats and because other than the Nate Berkus episode, Oprah was either sad (Bob Woodruff, child slavery) or boring (Faith Hill). The main reason why I'm desperate for new Tyra episodes is because I'm sooooo over her Crypt Keeper weave.

TyTy took an AIDS test on the air, using one of those mouth swab-y things. She seemed quite at home administering the test to herself, as it was a similar movement to one of her favorite pastimes—eatin' ribs!

Then, on a different episode, she kept it AIDS-y by having on Queen Latifah, who was promoting her HBO film about the disease, Life Support. Normally when Tyra has celebrity guests of that caliber, she'll make them walk the runway and show off their outfit, but she knew that Teef is, er, different, so instead they played basketball, which all but shattered the door of the glass closet Latifah's been living in. They may as well just started having oral sex right there.Notice how Tyra throws the ball underhanded, granny-style, while Latifah throws it overhanded, lesbian-style.

Tina Knowles (Beyonce's mom) made a special appearance this week, giving viewers makeovers, which essentially means that she dressed them in House of Deréon and gave them a weave. Did you notice that all of Ty's makeover shows involve giving people weaves? The grossest episode of the week, hands down, was the one where women became seriously ill or disfigured in their quest to become more beautiful. I decided that before these images could be displayed on Jezebel, they'd need a makeover—so I gave them weaves.

Here is a makeover I performed on a woman who received a botched lipo/tummy tuck:

And I added a few tracks for fullness to these legs that developed a bacterial infection from a messy pedicure.Seriously though, you have to hand it to Tyra for being in the presence of those sores and still managing to keep her ribs down. She's so strong.

Related: Quadroon [Wikipedia]