The WNBA no longer has to ask “have you seen her?” Thanks to last night’s brawl at the Palace of Auburn Hills, everybody has.
Last night’s nationally televised brawl between the Los Angeles Sparks and Detroit Shock has given the WNBA more attention than perhaps any other event in league history. The brawl, which featured star players Candace Parker and Lisa Leslie, has been featured prominently on blogs ranging from sports-specific sites like Awful Announcing to celebrity gossip site TMZ. Mainstream sports sites, including ESPN.com and Yahoo! Sports, have also given prominent coverage of the melee.
This morning’s Today Show on NBC reported on the incident during the opening segment, with host Meridith Vieira commenting “They always say it?s men who do that. Now I see women — it?s women who can do it too.” The fight was also mentioned on FOX Business Channel and the CBS Early Show.
While Pardon the Interruption and Around the Horn are on hiatus for the week, the fight was debated by Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith on ESPN First Take, and was the lead topic on Jim Rome is Burning. Wednesday’s 6:00 PM SportsCenter covered the brawl 19 minutes into the show. Overall, says Sports Illustrated media writer Richard Dietsch, “last night ESPN and ESPN Radio discussed the WNBA in more detail than they have in years.”
And what of that increased attention? On WRAL.com, Dave Nathan writes that recent incidences like the Sparks/Shock brawl, a recent skirmish between Danica Patrick and Milka Duno, and Ashley Harkleroad‘s appearance in Playboy, “have shown we really haven?t progressed all that much when it comes to women and how their place in the sports landscape is viewed by fans and the media.” SI.com’s Diestch says “while the short-term effects of this will be tons of publicity, I fear the long-term effect will be nothing more than a punch line for a wise guy sports blogger or mainstream writer.” The Rethinking Basketball blog writes that the reactions to the incident “especially those of male non-WNBA fans ? strike me as unnecessarily sexist and homophobic and sadly that should be expected by now.” Finally, Matt Watson of the AOL Fanhouse — a WNBA sponsor — writes that “while this is certainly a figurative black eye, I’m guessing all that really comes of this is a bunch of people who never liked the league in the first place cracking a few more jokes.”
Others believe any publicity is good publicity. In the same SI.com piece, Diestch says ESPN Radio host Jason Smith “argued last night that it was one of the best days the WNBA has ever had.” Detroit Free Press writer Jamie Samuelsen writes “I hesitate saying that fighting is good for the WNBA, but just consider this. If you were completely disinclined to watch the Shock play basketball ? aren?t you just a little bit more inclined if it?s a game against the Sparks?” Shock player Katie Smith, who was on the floor during the altercation, says “Is it the right kind of attention? No. But I don’t think the publicity hurts. In hockey, people live for the fights. … Who knows, maybe we’ll meet in the WNBA finals and there will be even more interest.”
