Women's basketball sees higher attendance,TV ratings

DETROIT (Reuters) - The Women's National Basketball Association saw higher attendance, television ratings and online traffic in its 12th season as the professional league continued to draw more attention.

The women's league was launched by the National Basketball Association in 1997 following the gold-medal performance of the U.S. women's team in the Olympics the year before.

The gains this season are a positive sign for a league adding more non-NBA team owners to its roster, analysts said.

"It may show the power of individual and active ownership as opposed to centralized control," said Robert Boland, a professor of sports management at New York University.

"It may also be the league is gaining some consistency and grass-roots support," he added. "The reason why many leagues fail is they don't have the time to build enough support."

Some women's sports leagues, such as soccer previously, have folded, and others have failed to garner a huge following, like softball. After the initial excitement of its first two years, the 14-team WNBA has survived a previous decline in attendance and TV ratings because its NBA parent has used its muscle to send tickets and sponsors the WNBA's way, analysts have said.

NBA Commissioner David Stern told Reuters in May he expects the WNBA to be profitable next season and will look to add two new teams by 2011.

The WNBA said its attendance this season rose 2.2 percent, as the league reported 46 sellouts, compared with 17 last year and double the previous high of 23 in 2004.

TV ratings on Walt Disney Co's ABC and ESPN2 channels finished up 19 percent, while viewership was up the same amount, the WNBA said. Among ESPN2 viewers, ages 18-34, the league saw an increase of 71 percent for women and 28 percent for men.

Last July, the WNBA signed an eight-year extension with the two channels to televise games, giving the league its first broadcast rights fee in a deal worth an estimated $30 million. In contrast, the NBA's deal last year was for eight years and $7.5 billion.

Traffic also rose at the league's website, WNBA.com, setting all-time highs in visits and page views, the league said. The site saw nearly 13 million visits and 59 million page views, up 35 percent and 20 percent, respectively.

On June 23, one day after Los Angeles Sparks rookie Candace Parker became the second WNBA player to dunk a ball in a regular-season game, the website set a single-day record with nearly 95,000 video streams, the league said. Parker was touted as a Michael Jordan-like talent who would draw more attention and fans to the women's league.

League merchandise sales also were up more than 36 percent, while jersey sales rose more than 46 percent, the WNBA said.

The league also signed new marketing deals with McDonald's Corp, Kia Motors Corp and Pitney Bowes Inc during the season.

The WNBA, whose fan base was about 60 percent female at the start of the season, offers a good place to appeal to women, who control most of the buying decisions in U.S. households. The NBA's fan base, on the other hand, is 64 percent male.

(Reporting by Ben Klayman; Editing by Andre Grenon)