March is rapidly becoming a very expensive month for British basketball fans. Toronto & New Jersey playing two games in London, ticket sales opening up for the London 2012 Olympics, and now the revealing of WNBA Manchester 2011.
In an announcement on WNBA.com today (Thursday), the league revealed to the world that the Atlanta Dream will travel to these shores this summer to take on the Great Britain Women’s National team in an exhibition game at Manchester’s M.E.N. Arena on May 29th 2011.
Tucked away in today’s press release was also the news that 2013 will signal further expansion of the NBA’s British invasion, when NBA Europe Live will roll into Manchester for the first non-London based pre-season game on these shores in league history; This is in addition to both the men’s and women’s versions of Team USA playing games in the city as part of their warm up to the 2012 Olympics.
Although I am thrilled that top level basketball is coming back to the UK, even more so that it’s coming to my door step in Manchester, I am slightly puzzled by the manner in which the WNBA/NBA has announced these games.
There have been mumblings of ‘WNBA Europe Live 2011’ going ahead for some time, but leaving the announcement until today is a bizarre move by the league; especially as they are giving themselves only two months to fill an arena with a basketball capacity of 20,500. Just three weeks ago, the NBA held fan events and coaching clinics in multiple cities across the UK (including Manchester) as part of ‘Basketball Week’, to coincide with the Raptors/Nets regular season games in London - Fan events and coaching clinics where, at the very least, the upcoming WNBA game could have been publicised. Adults and kids alike visiting the road shows could have been educated about women’s basketball and potentially even been sold tickets to the game. The same could have been done at The o2 Arena, during NBA Games 2011 between the Raptors and Nets, heck it wasn’t like the NBA wasn’t putting on much else in terms of publicity at the arena that weekend.
This nation loves basketball, and avid lovers of the sport, like myself, are jacked that the WNBA is coming to town, but why is the league coming here in the first place? For me, the WNBA are sending the Dream over to play Team GB to garner interest in women’s basketball prior to the Olympics next summer. But, why is the game taking place AFTER ticket sales for London 2012 have already closed? Surely that misses the point of both Team GB and women’s basketball enjoying some time in the spotlight to increase ticket sales for the women’s Olympic tournament?
This country won’t have a problem pledging their wages for tickets to the men’s tournament, such is interest in the sport here - but the WNBA is hardly known, and an earlier announcement of the Dream’s visit, with increased opportunity to publicise the women’s form of the game, would have been great to boost sales.
Ticket prices for the Manchester based WNBA pre-season game range from £20-£70 ($32-$113 US). The general consensus from those I’ve spoken to are that those prices are far too high. Factor in that the announcement of the game has hardly made a ripple in mainstream UK media, and that it comes at a time when British basketball fans are trying to fund their applications for tickets for London Olympics, there must be a worry that there will be thousands, rather than hundreds, of empty seats at The M.E.N. on May 29th.
I hope that the league have a plan to distribute any unsold tickets to school children and local sports clubs, as I would hate to have these great players come to my city and play in front of banks of fabric and plastic rather than excited fans.
Never the less, I will be there, and I’ll be looking forward to seeing the best female basketball players in the world playing in my back yard. In the meantime, let’s hope my job start date on Monday goes ahead and I’ll be able to afford all this basketball when the money needs to come out of my account in a months’ time.
Below are some of my photos from game two of NBA London Games 2011, where New Jersey ousted Toronto in three overtimes. You can read my recap of the weekend on TheScore.com here, and you can also read my Q&A on the NBA London experience with RaptorsHQ.com here. Be sure to visit Tom Hurley Sports again soon for further posts, including more on WNBA Manchester 2011, and don’t forget you can follow me on twitter @TomHurley
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