Another area of work for women is sports, like many other things there have been obstacle after obstacle to be able to fairly participate in sporting events. In 1996 the idea was passed to create the WNBA for women to play basketball professionally. The WNBA began play in June of 1997 with Sheryl Swoopes as the first signed player to the league.
There were many steps in forming the WNBA to be successful such as finding networks to sponsor and air the games. Once this was established with NBC, ESPN, and Lifetime then the main concern was forming the teams and signing players. The first inaugural season was played with eight teams; it continued to expand to sixteen teams. Nearly 200 players take part in the WNBA and they are all pioneers for the organization.
The next task at hand was creating logos and uniforms. The WNBA logo was decided on after narrowing it down from about 50 choices and then the team names and uniforms needed to be finalized. Based on numerous factors such as a link to the NBA team, a link to a key characteristic of the city/state or creating a name fitting the city/state landscape. Finally after this was all sorted out designs were unveiled for team uniforms on May 21, 1997.
Once the league was up and running fans started to get connected and things soared from there. A website was created and made user friendly so that it was easy for fans to keep up to date with their favorite teams and players. In 1999 there was an inaugural All Star Game at Madison Square Garden where the Western Conference defeated the Eastern Conference 79-61.
The WNBA is a prime example of how far women have come not only in the office workforce but in areas such as sports. This league is very important to many women and proves that women are just as capable as men to play sports successfully and that people actually want to watch!
There were many steps in forming the WNBA to be successful such as finding networks to sponsor and air the games. Once this was established with NBC, ESPN, and Lifetime then the main concern was forming the teams and signing players. The first inaugural season was played with eight teams; it continued to expand to sixteen teams. Nearly 200 players take part in the WNBA and they are all pioneers for the organization.
The next task at hand was creating logos and uniforms. The WNBA logo was decided on after narrowing it down from about 50 choices and then the team names and uniforms needed to be finalized. Based on numerous factors such as a link to the NBA team, a link to a key characteristic of the city/state or creating a name fitting the city/state landscape. Finally after this was all sorted out designs were unveiled for team uniforms on May 21, 1997.
Once the league was up and running fans started to get connected and things soared from there. A website was created and made user friendly so that it was easy for fans to keep up to date with their favorite teams and players. In 1999 there was an inaugural All Star Game at Madison Square Garden where the Western Conference defeated the Eastern Conference 79-61.
The WNBA is a prime example of how far women have come not only in the office workforce but in areas such as sports. This league is very important to many women and proves that women are just as capable as men to play sports successfully and that people actually want to watch!
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