I am understanding. I even know it's actually the Superstar Effect, not the Tiger Woods Effect.
I said what I meant. I wasn't talking about a topic, I was speaking to the actual effect caused by Tiger Woods himself that catapulted golf broadcasting and sponsorship rights into the stratosphere. There has not been a singular sportsperson in any sport who changed the landscape more than he did as it regards enriching his sport and his fellow players, period.
You're saying what the WNBA Union Rep said, after the deal was signed. To paraphrase, it's 10x more valuable than the deal signed.
Honestly, I've never read any details of what this person said. Everything I've been relating in this thread has come from my own back-of-the-envelope calculations and estimates.
In a league that used to have 20 teams, and attendance numbers only 17% lower than the Fever's current numbers, decades before the white savior came to uplift the sport.
You've never understood where I'm coming from because you keep looking backwards while I'm look forwards. Let me explain.
I don't know how many times you keep mentioning attendance figures. They mean almost ZERO in my calculations, because TODAY, due to streaming and social media, each team's "market" is the GLOBE, not simply the city or region the team plays in. The WNBA's current growth cycle is tied to global eyeballs, not just butts sitting in arenas. Heretofore, it was always local popularity which drove attendance. Today, it's internet/tv eyeballs that eventually lead to more butts in seats EVERYWHERE, not just for CC games.
And you've forgotten the new fiscal reality: Teams make more money from media rights than they do from attendance. CC became globally popular playing in the middle of Iowa for 4 years. Why? Because 99% of her fans watched her on tv and on the internet and social media hits. Translated to today, she's obviously a Pied Piper when it comes to drawing fans for her road games, unlike any other W player living or past. It's simply in the numbers and the numbers will only grow.
As "her fans," and obviously fans of the local teams that want to see CC and the Fever get beat, sop up tickets in every market, two ancillary things are happening simultaneously. 1) Although directly or indirectly brought to the game by CC, these fans grow to enjoy the competition beyond just CC games, leading to 2) When almost every CC game is broadcast nationally, people tuning in will also watch every other entertaining player on the league's other teams whom the Fever play, and those team's players will become more famous and popular due to the additional exposure they wouldn't have received if not for the confluence of events.
The eyeballs watching all of the league's teams will continue to grow - and the media rights will continue to become more valuable. I can't repeat this enough - CC and the W are at this moment bringing more viewers to their regular season nationally televised games than the NBA does outside of prime time "spotlight" games on ABC.
And due to the way the W breaks up its schedule where on most nights only 4 to 8 teams might be playing instead of 20-30 teams in the NBA, they can offer more national games amongst the most popular teams on a weekly basis than you'd naturally think a 40 game schedule would allow and they concentrate eyeballs on fewer teams, thus maximizing ratings where NBA teams dilute them with regional coverage - that pays far less for games than do national/international outlets.