WNBA 2010 – All-star Feistiness From Orender

Perhaps the best part of the WNBA “Stars at the Sun” weekend was WNBA President Donna Orender’s press conference. What made this one notable was that Ms Orender’s smiling, optimistic face gave way to that of a league president bristling over some of the obstacles she’s had to strain against.

Clearly, she’s a bit annoyed with partner ESPN and how they help (or more to the point, don’t help) in showing their product:

Yes, [ESPN and I] did talk a lot about highlights. We talked about we have a game on ESPN2 Tuesday night. Diana Taurasi scored I think 30 that game. On ESPN local L.A. I see some highlights. That’s great. Turn on national, it’s not there. I don’t understand that. To their credit, we had a very positive, productive discussion. Let’s all monitor together. I would also say this: if there’s something that you don’t like, send them a note. I do. Help me out.

But also, there was a general frustration with the persisting idea that the WNBA is failing. This has been broadcast by trolls constantly for every year of the league’s existence.

All I can do is I walk into a room and I’ll say, Here are our real numbers. We are a business that’s asked to deliver a real business model in order to succeed, which really, when you look at all of our other contemporary businesses, don’t necessarily do that. … We’re asked to show trend growth. We are showing trend growth. This is our fourth year of positive trends. I’m not sure what more people are asking for. You’re asking for a better product year in and year out. We have a better product.
…
You have athletes who are everything we say they should be. They are role models. They care about their community. They play because they love to play. It is not because they’re going to have seven zeros at the end of their contract. Yet and yet I have to always read these articles about the whatever it is. I am stumped by that. I think we’re all stumped by that. … I think everybody in every community should be throwing their arms around us and giving us big bear hugs after they’ve bought their 10 family season passes.

This was an amazingly forceful press conference for Orender, who doesn’t usually show this side to the public–certainly not on broadcast. Now, I’m not saying I want to see this all the time (it can fan trollish flames), but from time-to-time is good to see that the league president is just as ticked-off about some of this stuff as the rest of us are.