An hour and a half before the tip-off last Wednesday, the doors of the Charlotte Coliseum swung open, and America came pouring in. Families, senior citizens, teenage girls and boys--still damp from the rains that had pelted the Carolinas--entered the arena popularly known as the Hive and began buzzing around the souvenir stands and the floor on which the players practiced. Charlotte was about to play New York, and the excitement was as palpable as it would be before any game between the Hornets and the Knicks.
Except this was July, the teams were called the Sting and the Liberty, and the players that the fans were beseeching for autographs were not Ewing and Rice but Lobo and Bullett. One of the hottest items at the souvenir stands was a T shirt that read INVENTED BY MAN, PERFECTED BY WOMAN. "This is phenomenal," said a woman who drove 65 miles from South Carolina to bring her daughter to the game. "My daughter thinks I'm the best mama in the world." Following the laser lights and loud music required of every N.B.A. pregame show, the announcer thundered, "O.K., Charlotte, We Got Next!"
Welcome to the W.N.B.A., the Women's National Basketball Association, or the N.B.A.'s baby sister. On the court, the sneakers squeak with the same urgency as they do in the N.B.A., the coaches yell, "Why isn't that a foul?" at the refs, and the players get fined for roughhousing--though the $500 recently assessed against Nancy Lieberman-Cline of the Phoenix Mercury for holding Jamila Wideman of the Los Angeles Sparks by the neck equals what Dennis Rodman spends in a year for eyeliner.
Backed by the existing infrastructure and marketing savvy of the N.B.A., the W.N.B.A. has exceeded all expectations midway through its two-month inaugural season, averaging 8,766 in attendance, well above its projection of 4,500 a game, and occasionally eclipsing Major League Soccer and P.G.A. golf in the television ratings. W.N.B.A. games are televised nationally over NBC (weekends), ESPN (weekdays) and Lifetime (Fridays). Viewers watching the N.B.A. playoffs in June were besieged with the W.N.B.A. slogan, "We Got Next." The phrase is commonly used on playgrounds to reserve the next game, but in light of the early success of the league, it takes on a new meaning. "We are building a first-class operation that appeals to fans, players, television, corporate sponsors," says Val Ackerman, the former University of Virginia star (1977-81) who is the W.N.B.A.'s president. "Our dream is to become the fifth major league."
The inspiring show of American women in the Olympics last year, attributable to the passage of Title IX 25 years ago, has fed the W.N.B.A. in the same way that Teresa Weatherspoon (T-Spoon) feeds Sophia Witherspoon (Serving Spoon) for the New York Liberty. Indeed, these are halcyon days for women's sports. Tennis star Martina Hingis has won more money so far this year than such athletes as Tiger Woods and Pete Sampras. The Women's Professional Fastpitch softball league, concentrated in the Southeast, has been pulling in fans and TV viewers in surprising numbers. Two new magazines (SPORTS ILLUSTRATED'S Women/Sport and Conde Nast's Sports for Women) will soon be competing for readership.