THE N.B.A.'S SISTER ACT

By Steve Wulf

An hour and a half before the tip-off last Wednesday, the doors of the Charlotte Coliseum swung open, and America came pouring in. Families, senior citizens, teenage girls and boys--still damp from the rains that had pelted the Carolinas--entered the arena popularly known as the Hive and began buzzing around the souvenir stands and the floor on which the players practiced. Charlotte was about to play New York, and the excitement was as palpable as it would be before any game between the Hornets and the Knicks.

Except this was July, the teams were called the Sting and the Liberty, and the players that the fans were beseeching for autographs were not Ewing and Rice but Lobo and Bullett. One of the hottest items at the souvenir stands was a T shirt that read INVENTED BY MAN, PERFECTED BY WOMAN. "This is phenomenal," said a woman who drove 65 miles from South Carolina to bring her daughter to the game. "My daughter thinks I'm the best mama in the world." Following the laser lights and loud music required of every N.B.A. pregame show, the announcer thundered, "O.K., Charlotte, We Got Next!"

Welcome to the W.N.B.A., the Women's National Basketball Association, or the N.B.A.'s baby sister. On the court, the sneakers squeak with the same urgency as they do in the N.B.A., the coaches yell, "Why isn't that a foul?" at the refs, and the players get fined for roughhousing--though the $500 recently assessed against Nancy Lieberman-Cline of the Phoenix Mercury for holding Jamila Wideman of the Los Angeles Sparks by the neck equals what Dennis Rodman spends in a year for eyeliner.

Backed by the existing infrastructure and marketing savvy of the N.B.A., the W.N.B.A. has exceeded all expectations midway through its two-month inaugural season, averaging 8,766 in attendance, well above its projection of 4,500 a game, and occasionally eclipsing Major League Soccer and P.G.A. golf in the television ratings. W.N.B.A. games are televised nationally over NBC (weekends), ESPN (weekdays) and Lifetime (Fridays). Viewers watching the N.B.A. playoffs in June were besieged with the W.N.B.A. slogan, "We Got Next." The phrase is commonly used on playgrounds to reserve the next game, but in light of the early success of the league, it takes on a new meaning. "We are building a first-class operation that appeals to fans, players, television, corporate sponsors," says Val Ackerman, the former University of Virginia star (1977-81) who is the W.N.B.A.'s president. "Our dream is to become the fifth major league."

The inspiring show of American women in the Olympics last year, attributable to the passage of Title IX 25 years ago, has fed the W.N.B.A. in the same way that Teresa Weatherspoon (T-Spoon) feeds Sophia Witherspoon (Serving Spoon) for the New York Liberty. Indeed, these are halcyon days for women's sports. Tennis star Martina Hingis has won more money so far this year than such athletes as Tiger Woods and Pete Sampras. The Women's Professional Fastpitch softball league, concentrated in the Southeast, has been pulling in fans and TV viewers in surprising numbers. Two new magazines (SPORTS ILLUSTRATED'S Women/Sport and Conde Nast's Sports for Women) will soon be competing for readership.

There are also two women's basketball leagues, the W.N.B.A. and the American Basketball League, which is two more than there were last year at this time. Since the 1970s, several other women's basketball leagues have folded, including the Liberty Basketball Association, which lasted one exhibition game in 1991 despite--or because of--lower rims, spandex uniforms and a much smaller ball. The A.B.L., which operates in smaller markets during the fall and winter, is known as a players' league; it pays more--the average salary is $80,000 a year--and boasts of having the best players (Olympians Dawn Staley, Teresa Edwards and Katrina McClain). Playing in cities like San Jose, Calif., Richmond, Va., and Columbus, Ohio, the A.B.L. averaged 3,500 fans a game with very little TV exposure. By one estimate, the A.B.L. spent $6 million on salaries this year and $1.5 million on marketing. The W.N.B.A., on the other hand, is spending $15 million on marketing and $3 million on salaries.

Says Gary Cavalli, a co-founder and CEO of the A.B.L.: "We feel that women's basketball is a great sport that deserves to stand on a stage of its own during the traditional basketball season. You really have two totally different strategies here, and I don't know who's right and who's wrong. It could be that both of us are right, and two leagues will survive." Lieberman-Cline, who is 39 and the veteran of three leagues as well as the men's United States Basketball League, decided to sign with the W.N.B.A. after a conversation she had last year with Kevin Costner. The actor asked her, "Will the A.B.L. be here in 20 years?" She said she didn't know. "Will the W.N.B.A. be here in 20 years?" he asked. When she said yes, Costner told her, "You've made your decision. You want to be a part of history."

While both Cavalli and Ackerman maintain that they wish each other only the best, the W.N.B.A. did pointedly leave out the A.B.L. in the history of women's basketball it recently printed in a newsletter. And a W.N.B.A. executive told Time, "There is a lot of pressure to beat the A.B.L. 'We gotta beat 'em, we gotta beat 'em' is the mentality that comes down from headquarters." Reporters who regularly cover the W.N.B.A. suspect the attendance figures are slightly inflated. But there's no doubting the marketing acumen of the league, which uses regular N.B.A. staff members--not when Liberty (or Sting or Mercury) merchandise flies off the shelves and sports sections devote considerably more space to the summer league than they did to the A.B.L. Even Cavalli is sanguine about the promo power of the W.N.B.A. "When they ran those ads in May and June," he says, "I was getting one or two calls a week from people saying, 'Gee, I saw your ad on TV the other night. Looks really great.' I said, 'Thank you. We spent a lot of money on that.'"

The W.N.B.A. has several other things going for it besides hype. Affordability is one. In Charlotte, a family of four can buy a "Valupak": four tickets, four hot dogs, four sodas and popcorn for $25. Generally, the ticket prices are comparable to those at a major league baseball game. (Even the celebrities who have been patronizing Liberty games in Madison Square Garden--Rosie O'Donnell, Gregory Hines, Rosie Perez--get a break, paying $150 for a courtside seat that costs Spike Lee $1,000 during the Knicks season.) While the concession stands in Charlotte offer an official leather orange-and-white W.N.B.A. ball for a hefty $99, they also have a rubber one for $25.

Another attraction is the competition itself. Purists such as ucla's legendary coach John Wooden think women's basketball is more watchable than men's basketball. It's certainly more structured and team-oriented than the helter-skelter N.B.A. game, and that aesthetic has helped the W.N.B.A. attract older fans who miss the traditional pace of basketball. At first look, W.N.B.A. play was somewhat sloppy, but in the past few weeks it has tightened up. Last week in Charlotte, the 7,266 fans were treated to a thrilling game won by the Liberty, 65-63, on two free throws by Rebecca Lobo in the last seconds. Lobo may be the biggest star in the W.N.B.A., but she's not the only one. In Phoenix, there's Australian Michele Timms, the guard known as Tank Girl for her spiked blond hair and aggressive play. And there's Lisa Leslie, the Wilhelmina model who plays center for the Sparks. And Sheryl Swoopes, who's expected to join the Houston Comets soon, now that she has given birth to a boy named Jordan after youknowwho.

But there's another quality that the W.N.B.A. has and the N.B.A. hasn't: accessibility. After the loss to New York, Sting star Vicky Bullett signed everything put in front of her and then asked, "Have I missed anyone?" The women, grateful for a league of their own even if the N.B.A. runs it, sign autographs early, often and late. Indeed, the give-and-take between players and fans is positively refreshing. The other night in Madison Square Garden, the Liberty held a fan-appreciation night that an usher named Pete certainly appreciated. "At one point," recalled Pete, "a girl told Teresa Weatherspoon that she was her hero, and Teresa went up into the stands to give her a hug. Somehow, I don't envision Patrick Ewing doing that."

Ackerman's favorite moment of the W.N.B.A. season was caught on television during a Liberty game. Rhonda Blades, a guard for New York, was kneeling next to the scorer's table, waiting to get into the fray, when she noticed two little girls sitting courtside. "Just before Rhonda went into the game," Ackerman recalls, "she gave one of the girls a high-five. Then the girl showed her hand to her friend, as if she had been given this wonderful present. And I guess she had."

She got next.

--Reported by Sally B. Donnelly/Charlotte and Lawrence Mondi/New York

With reporting by SALLY B. DONNELLY/CHARLOTTE AND LAWRENCE MONDI/NEW YORK