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WNBA Folds Comets; A Victim of Recession or the League?

The Houston Comets were once the face of the WNBA, the league's first dynasty. Winners of not just the first WNBA championship, the Comets went on to win the next three. They were the sport's first dynasty, the WNBA's Boston Celtics. Not just champions but fun to watch and inspirational to boot. The Comets won a city's heart and filled up the arena, well, at least by that league's standards. During the team's glory days, the Comets were one of the league's leaders in attendance, drawing 9,700 in the inaugural season of 1997, peaking at 12,602 the next year, falling to 11,906 the following and rising back to 12,255 for the fourth and final championship in 2000.

After the team started winning less, some of the fans stopped coming, although the team still nearly 11,000 a game in 2002. However, last season, the Comets were down to 13th or 14th in the league in attendance drawing just 6,585 per game. That was just about half the crowds the team was drawing at the peak.

The Comets were originally owned by Les Alexander, the owner of the Houston Rockets, as were all the WNBA teams in the beginning. Alexander sold the Comets to furniture retailer Hilton Koch in October, 2007 for $10 million. It soon became apparent that Koch was woefully underfinanced. With attendance down, the Comets were bleeding money. He moved the team out of the Rockets home arena to save money, but this probably didn't do much for the team's image in town. He tried selling the team without success and when all else failed, turned the team over to the league.

The league tried selling the team also without success. Not wishing to operate the team indefinitely, and not finding any buyers, the league made the decision to close the team. It will conduct a dispersal draft on December 8 of the players still under contract.

Was this just a case of an underfinanced owner incapable of properly running a team in a market falling out of love with a franchise no longer winning championships? Was this symptomatic of deeper problems within the WNBA as the country sinks deeper and deeper into a recession that shows no sign of abating and which is starting to hit sports harder and harder? While the WNBA rushes to put the best possible face of this pig, it can't totally escape blame for the problems in Houston. First, it approved the sale to Koch, apparently without fully vetting his financial wherewithal because due diligence should have turned up his inability to properly finance operations. In addition, I think the WNBA has more than its fair share of financial issues ahead of it. While attendance showed a modest increase last season, as did the TV ratings, those numbers are certainly nothing to jump up and down about and as the league transforms its ownership from a mirror of the NBA to independent ownership, the relationship of the league with the NBA is bound to change. That can't be favorable. The NBA and its clout is responsible for much of the league's so far limited success, at least on a national scale. It is the NBA which has been able to secure the national TV contract and you have to wonder if one will be available if the NBA no longer insists on the inclusion of the WNBA in its television contracts.

Full post as published by Sports Biz on December 07, 2008 (boomark / email).