There are, in this sports-mad world, professional leagues for men who play basketball, baseball, football, arena football, cricket and even beach soccer. But for most women athletes, the playing days end when college does.
Not anymore. Thanks in large part to two Stanford graduates, female basketball players now have a league of their own.
The eight-team American Basketball League tipped off its inaugural season in October, quickly winning better-than-expected crowds and rave reviews. Fans packed the San Jose Events Center for the league's first game between the San Jose Lasers and the Atlanta Glory. Two days later, the start of the game between Atlanta and the Richmond Rage was delayed 25 minutes as another sell-out crowd streamed from the souvenir stands to its seats. In the first month of play, attendance averaged nearly 3,700 per game, more than 20 percent above league expectations.
The spectators may be drawn by more than mere hoopla. The New York Times pronounced the quality of play "solid women's hoops," and Sports Illustrated said that "the fledgling ABL won't lack for grit and hustle." Now others are looking to get in on the action. Shortly after the ABL debuted, the National Basketball Association announced the formation of its own women's league, the WNBA, which will launch in eight cities next summer.
League organizers Gary Cavalli, '71, and Anne Cribbs, '79, learned about the business of sports years ago at Stanford. As sports information director in the 1970s, Cavalli recalls, "We didn't even have to pull the bleachers out" to accommodate the crowds at women's games at Maples Pavilion. "You'd have four people--two boyfriends and two parents." Cribbs remembers returning to Stanford after winning a gold medal in swimming during the 1960 Olympics. Her career was over. There were no college swim teams for women in the days before Title IX opened the door for women athletes. So she coached competitive swimming and started a family. In 1991, she became a business partner with Cavalli, who had left Stanford in 1983 to form a public relations and marketing firm in Palo Alto.
The two first noticed the rising popularity of the Stanford women's game about five years ago, when they shared season tickets at Maples. It was at a game in 1992 that they cooked up the idea of a professional league. But it wasn't until three years later that the notion began to take off. That was when Cribbs started talking to Steve Hams, a Silicon Valley executive whose daughter played basketball with Cribbs's daughter. The trio drafted a business plan and brainstormed league organization. They took heart in the attention being paid to the U.S. women's basketball team even before it won the gold medal at the Atlanta Olympics. And they took advantage of Stanford connections.
At the Hall of Fame induction dinner in 1995, Cavalli, who was hired to help organize the event, arranged to sit next to former two-time All-American Jennifer Azzi, '90. Before the chicken was even served, he pitched the league to her, promising to send her a business plan the next day. Azzi read it--and was quickly won over.
That was the easy part. It was launching the league that proved to be no slam-dunk. Both Cavalli and Cribbs often find themselves in unfamiliar territory, somedays wrestling with legions of lawyers over everything from trademarks to immigration snafus (one of the league's best players is the Brazilian Marta deSouza Sobral). Cribbs, vice president for sponsorships and community development, had to learn the Internet in order to design the league's web page. Cavalli, who admits he is no number-cruncher, even served as the chief financial officer for two months. Behind a sprawl of paper on his desk one day last fall, he found himself wooing additional investors, preparing for three media interviews later in the day, polishing the final version of a shoe contract and getting ready to fly to Denver to produce the broadcast of an ABL game that evening. Says Cavalli, the league's vice president of marketing and communications: "There are days when I think, 'Wow, we created a major basketball league in the United States.' And then the next day, I wake up at 3 in the morning in a cold sweat because of all the responsibility."
But Cavalli and Cribbs are undaunted; they view themselves on something of a mission. They see the ABL as representing a kind of professional Title IX, paving the way for women, as much as men, to make careers in sports. "It's more than a business," Cavalli says with pride. "It's the right thing to do."
The league boasts an unusual degree of player involvement. ABL players have a 10 percent share of league ownership, tying their interest with those of the league. The league sought player input on everything from the length of the game (10-minute quarters) to the size of the ball (standard size, instead of the slightly smaller ball women use in college). Salaries average $70,000 a year, and already endorsements are rolling in.
Still, Cribbs and Cavalli face difficult odds. No major women's basketball league in the U.S. has survived more than three seasons. The last effort, the Liberty League, which had players dress in unitards and shoot at lower-than-standard rims, mercifully folded in 1991 after just one exhibition game.
The women, says Cribbs, "have a real sense of being "pioneers"--complete with some pioneer hardships. Already this season, which runs for 40 games through the championship game in mid-March, many players have found life on the road more grueling than they had anticipated. The new league is pinching pennies. If that means a team must head to the airport at 4 a.m. instead of chartering a plane as NBA teams do--well, so be it. "Just like the frontier women in Kansas," jokes Cribbs.
But for the ABL, the rewards might be measured in ways other than a super deluxe lifestyle. Cavalli says he's already heard girls in the stands talk of wanting to play pro basketball. And for Cribbs, all her efforts suddenly seemed worthwhile when, on the night of the first game, the woman parking lot attendant looked at her solemnly and said, "We're going to remember this night for the rest of our lives." Just try saying that about an arena football game.
Todd Barrett, MBA '95, is a former Chicago-based Newsweek correspondent.
