It probably has something to do with Portland's reputation as a very white city, which has also put the royal family in a recent bind (not to mention the historical colonization and slavery), and white leadership wary of upsetting a league made up largely of black players.
The NBA went from owning all of the teams to forcing teams to get their own owners. Paul Allen was having his money problems and, as such, did not qualify to buy the team. Nobody else stepped up, so the team folded.
We aren't blaming you. I'm sure it was an honest mistake. The important thing is to fix the problem, learn the lessons, and move forward. barfo
Just revisiting what was an incredible opportunity wasted for Portland to secure a WNBA franchise before the "Caitlin Clark Effect" will make such an endeavor much more expensive in the near future. Portland is and has been a hotbed for women's sports for decades. While the games might not sell out regularly (do the Blazers?), the fanbase is already there and hungry for more options. Just a colossal miss by whatever ownership group failed to come to terms on a new Portland team
Well, the WNBA didn't want the team to play in the MC, while the RG was being refurbished for it's main inhabitant and biggest and most important customer (which is short sighted by the WNBA. The market in Portland is prime for the taking). It should be noted that the game that the Fever played (vs the Wings) had less than 8000 in attendance because they played in an arena that seats about 7000 or so people (for comparisons sake, the Blazers averaged over twice that and were a shit-tactular team this season). It'd be easy for the Portland franchise, for 2 years, to play in the MC and average around the league average IMHO (last year it was about 6500 per game). If that's the reason the WNBA didn't come, it's a dumb reason.
And though 2023 saw a rise in WNBA attendance, average attendance is still only 6,615 people per game, compared to the NBA’s average of 18,324. https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/03/spor...though 2023 saw a,the NBA's average of 18,324. 18,790 is the average capacity of all 29 NBA arenas.
It's this kind of facts that show to me that the reason the WNBA gave for there not being a WNBA team in Portland is crap. There are realistically only a few (depending on the way they'd set up the seats) franchises that would have higher attendance than the capacity of the MC. The highest attendance #'s for the WNBA last year (Vegas) was lower than the *average* attendance of 23 of the 30 teams in the NBA. To act like they had to play in the Moda for (what amounts to) 40 games, is laughable. FFS, they have a quarter of the league averaging under 5K per game. The team would've been perfectly fine playing 2 years in the MC while the Moda is being fixed up.
There's more still to it than just attendance figures. A quick search shows average WNBA ticket prices to be $18 vs $90 for the NBA. https://www.lgbexpress.com/?p=7325 If correct -- and even if off somewhat, the point still stands -- that 6,615/game for the WNBA would be significantly lower if the tickets were 4-5x the cost.
