The WNBA’s Houston Comets, the team with the most championships in league history, has folded after failing to find new ownership.
Earlier this year, former owner Hilton Koch put the team up for sale. The league set a November deadline to find new owners for the franchise, which won the first four titles in league history, and featured star players Cynthia Cooper and Sheyrl Swoopes.
What does the Comets demise say about the WNBA? What would it say about the state of Major League Baseball if the Yankees suspended operations? Or the state of the NBA if the Celtics folded? Clearly, such events would be indicative of a dying league. While the idea of contraction in major pro sports is far from out of the question — it was a real possibility for Major League Baseball in this decade — it seems almost impossible to imagine that any of the the most successful teams would go out of business.
The disbanding of the Comets, the team that was the early face of the WNBA, is a major blow the league — moreso than with previous teams. Prior to the Comets’ folding, only one WNBA team to make the WNBA Finals had ever folded — the Charlotte Sting, which lost in the 2001 Finals. For a team that was as successful as the Comets to cease operations a mere eight years after its last championship does not portend great things for the WNBA. Even WNBA President Donna Orender concedes that “You can’t ignore the fact this team was the engine that drove the league.”
With the Comets’ demise, the WNBA will field 13 teams in 2009. As a testament to the league’s instability, the 2009 season will mark the third time in six years the WNBA will play with 13 teams after having 14 the previous year. The league lost the Cleveland Rockers prior to the ’04 season, added the Chicago Sky for the ’06 season, lost the Charlotte Sting in ’07, added the Atlanta Dream for ’08, and will lose the Comets for ’09.
Despite the loss of one of its most storied franchises, and despite the continued instability, Orender does not sound worried. Orender: “My outlook is to build on the fact that the league has great momentum and in Houston we didn’t have the enough runway to get a deal done in time for the 2009 season. So right now we have to move on. … There are new cities in the pipeline and prospects for continued growth are bright. The league is stronger than ever.”
There may be cities in the pipeline, but how can a league grow if it keeps folding teams the year after adding new ones?
