The History of Sthe WNBA

History of the WNBA 1996-2006

Officially approved by the NBA Board of Governors on April 24, 1996, the creation of the WNBA was first announced at a press conference with Rebecca Lobo, Lisa Leslie and Sheryl Swoopes in attendance. While not the first major women's professional basketball league in the United States (a distinction held by the defunct WBL), the WNBA is the only league to receive full backing of the NBA. The WNBA logo, "Logo Woman" paralleled the NBA logo and was selected out of 50 different designs.A Biography of 6 foot 4 Tammy Sutton Brown
On the heels of a much-publicized gold medal run by the 1996 USA Basketball Women's National Team at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games, the WNBA began its first season on June 21, 1997 to much fanfare. The league began with eight teams; the first WNBA game featured the New York Liberty facing the Los Angeles Sparks in Los Angeles. The game was televised nationally in the United States on the NBC television network. At the start of the 1997 season, the WNBA had television deals in place with NBC (NBA rights holder), and the Walt Disney Company and Hearst Corporation joint venture channels, ESPN and Lifetime Television Network, respectively. Penny Toler was the first woman to score a point in the league.A Biography of 6 foot 7 Katie Feenstra
The WNBA centered its marketing campaign, dubbed "We Got Next", around stars Rebecca Lobo, Lisa Leslie and Sheryl Swoopes. In the league's first season, Leslie's Los Angeles Sparks underperformed and Swoopes sat out much of the season due to her pregnancy. The WNBA's true star in 1997 was WNBA MVP Cynthia Cooper, Swoopes' teammate on the Houston Comets. The Comets defeated Lobo's New York Liberty in the first WNBA Championship game.
The initial "We Got Next" advertisement would run following each NBA season until it was replaced with the "We Got Game" campaign.
In 1999, the league's chief competition, the American Basketball League, folded. Many of the ABL's star players, including several Olympic gold medalists (like Nikki McCray and Dawn Staley) and a number of standout college performers (including Kate Starbird and Jennifer Rizzotti), then joined the rosters of WNBA teams and, in so doing, enhanced the overall quality of play in WNBA. When a lockout resulted in a abbreviated NBA season, the WNBA was coming into its own.
Four teams were added after the 1997 season, bringing the number of teams in the league up to twelve. Pre-season drafting of University of Tennessee Lady Volunteers star Chamique Holdsclaw signaled a new youth movement in a league traditionally comprised of international and college veterans.
The 1999 season began with a collective bargaining agreement between players and the league, marking the first collective bargaining agreement to be signed in the history of women's professional sports.A Biography of the about 7 foot tall Basketball player, Margo Dydek
On May 23, 2000 the Houston Comets became the first WNBA team to be invited to the White House Rose Garden. Bill Clinton became the first president to celebrate a WNBA championship.A Biography of 6 foot 5 Janell Burse
By the 2000 season, the WNBA had doubled in size. Two more teams were added in 1998, another two in 1999 and four more in 2000. Teams and the league were collectively owned by the NBA until 2002, when the NBA sold WNBA teams either to their NBA counterparts in the same city or to a third party. This led to two teams moving and two teams folding before the 2003 season began. The Cleveland Rockers folded after the 2003 season.
In addition to the restructuring of teams, players also caused changes in the league. In 2002, the WNBA Players Association threatened to strike the next season if a new deal was not worked out between players and the league. The result was a delay in the start of the 2003 preseason.
In 2003, the Orlando Miracle relocated and became the Connecticut Sun. It was the first franchise owned by a party other than the NBA or one of the NBA team owners.A Biography of 6 foot 6 Kara Braxton
The 2004 season proved to be the most competitive in league history, with almost all the teams in the league vying for playoff spots. On October 21, 2004, in the wake of this success, Val Ackerman, the first WNBA president, announced her resignation, effective February 1, 2005, citing the desire to spend more time with her family. Ackerman later became president of USA Basketball.A Biography of 5 foot 9 Sue Bird
On February 15, 2005, NBA Commissioner David Stern announced that Donna Orender, who had been serving as the Senior Vice President of the PGA Tour and who had played for several teams in the now-defunct Women's Pro Basketball League, would be Ackerman's successor as of April 2005.
The WNBA awarded its first expansion team in several years to Chicago (later named the Sky) in February 2005. In the off-season, a set of rule changes was approved that made the WNBA more like the NBA.A Biography of 6 foot 4 Suzy Batkovic
The 2006 season was the WNBA's tenth; the league became the first team-oriented women's professional sports league to exist for ten consecutive seasons. On the occasion of the tenth anniversary, the WNBA released its All-Decade Team, comprising the ten WNBA players deemed to have contributed, through on-court play and off-court activities, the most to women's basketball during the period of the league's existence.

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