From Pipe Dreams to Hoop Dreams: The WNBA

In the spring of nineteen ninety seven. There was no escaping the news wops women's professional basketball in the United States was going to be a thing. For decades, the best that talented hoops players could hope for was a chance of the US Olympic team or a roster spot on one of the European professional teams. Pro Leagues had popped up over the years, but disappeared as quickly as

I am pleased to announce that the Board of Governors approves the concept of the NBA establishing the Women's National Basketball Association.

It was David Stern's newest obsession, his baby. He ensured that it was fully funded and helped secure tea contracts and arenas for the women to play in. Rebecca Lobo was one of the first to sign on.

Rebecca Lobo and Cheryl Swoops had become the first players to sign contracts.

I was excited about it. I was excited about a new challenge playing professionally, but really didn't really have any idea what was to come like when we started doing promotional stuff. I think maybe November December of nineteen ninety six. There weren't even team logos yet, Like you see stuff with Me, Cheryl, Lisa, Lynette Wood in those early days and we're just in the WNBA logoed mesh tank top and mesh shorts because that's all they had. They had a logo for the league, no team colors, no team

The most creative ideas often come from a place of constraint of limitation.

No logo, no team names, no problem.

And the famous commercial was that we got next commercial and I mean, it's you and Cheryl's SWOOVESA and Lisa Leslie, you know, coming.

Out of the tunnel. So awesome. It was just like one of the great commercials.

Ever, you know. So we wear these long leather coats for this and they said their inspiration was reservoir dogs, which I had not seen. At the end of the shoot, we're like, can we keep these coats. They say, yes, I still have that coat in my basement. Don't wear it. I haven't worn it, but I've got this like maybe at some point we'll go and like, you know, somebody will want it because it was part of that commercial

We got next, one of the great things to come from the NBA's famed marketing department, The song Little Green Bag by George Baker's selection was.

The earworm that the new league needed.

The visuals were in fact inspired by Quentin Tarantino's cult classic reservoir dogs, Leslie Lobo swoops and matching kangle flat caps flipped backwards, floor length leathered trench coats and WNBA gym bags strutting down a tunnel towards a bright light. It's quintessential nineties. The hair, the makeup, the attitude, the beret. That was the other thing they had you guys, I

I think Lisa like had a bear middriff and like this was nineteen ninety six, so like now you can't buy close that that don't show your middrift. But in those days, she likes they had her all, you know, cued it.

Out and uh oh yeah, she was like super model material, you know. I mean it was definitely like sex Appeal meets basketball, like that was.

That commercial is.

So iconic, and I think you should wear that jacket. I do think you should take it out and wear it like on the air, Like I think we should figure something out.

Yeah, Like it's so old that I mean it with the fashion cycle, it'll probably be in again at some point in the near future.

Here's how Val Ackerman remembers it.

I mean, I remember we were sitting in a conference room and NBA Entertainment came in and presented this and we were are jaws dropped. Keep in mind, we had

The video ended with the date June twenty first, nineteen ninety seven.

Ready or Not? The countdown had begun.

From the NBA and iHeart podcasts This is NBA DNA with Me Hannah Storm, Episode eight, Part two from Pipe Dreams to Hoop Dreams.

Their coach said that would be the key to the game, boxing out for rebounds, Paramo.

For three and Shade Hiss and everything is going to.

Call that inaugural season of the WNBA Intense would be an understatement.

It all starts with leaps of us emotionally mentally what she does out on the floor.

We worked NonStop on the NBC side setting up a new league. Creating anything from scratch is logistically complicated for starters, where do you play?

And when people are always questioning, you.

Know, why does the WNBA play in the summer? Well, they had to fill arenas And that was a big way that the league got sold. Was not only did it afford the owners an opportunity to fill their arenas in the summer, but also it allowed the players to still maintain playing overseas well.

I will say that the main reason you're right on both of those counts, The main reason that was television. The thinking was we would not be able to get prime TV windows if you played in the normal basketball fall winter time frame, because those prime windows had been consumed already by the NBA, by college basketball men and women, the NHL. You had sort of NFL going well into now January maybe, February late later on February maybe, and every day.

Of the week now too, right, late.

Season baseball, late season baseball, in the fall, early season baseball.

And you can't, you can't.

You gotta have a window, phone, you gotta a window.

And that was the summer. And this was, you know, the year after Major League Soccer had launched, so NBA hadn't yet figured out like how to program the summer for themselves with their summer league. So we saw there the opportunity, and in fact, our early network arrangements were with NBCESPN and Lifetime a game of the week in primetime television. So that was the driver because TV meant credibility and exposure and revenue.

Houston trailing by launch twenty seconds. Let's a play on the broadcasting. It was a huge shift for me.

For the first time in my career, I'd be calling games. So the stars had already begun to blossom. The Olympics just added another layer to Cheryl Swoopster rebec Lobo, Lisa Leslie, they are they are household names at this point because everybody watches the Olympics, even if you weren't paying attention to women's college basketball. Then jump to the decision by the NBA We're going to make a business out of this, and NBC saying we are going to broadcast those games, and.

Lisa you are going to produce those games.

I know it was.

It was unbelievable and Hannah, you're going to do to play back play exactly?

I was like, what right?

So, yeah, it was a huge thrill for me. I hadn't produced many live sporting events at that time. I was mostly you know, the head filmmaker, and to get that opportunity as a as a woman in sports television was huge for me. To you know, have the support of the NBA, to have the support of NBC Sports to put me in that position really was a huge honor.

And then when they told me that you were going to.

Be my play, my play by play person and Annie and Annie Myers was going to be the analyst, it was just a dream come true.

All women crew, a.

Sellout crowd in Houston, Texas, Hannah Storm, Ann Myers, Lisa Mlaski, and Benbrew.

And to be able to do it with you, Hannah, especially because you were just you know, you had just given birth and we had to figure that piece out of how we're going to kind of do rehearsals and stuff, and you were weaning off breastfeeding, and oh yeah, it was really a fun time and one of my favorite experiences, you know. Ever at NBC I must say it was difficult. It was difficult, but it was we got better each game. I thought, Okay, I got an ulcer that summer. That just tells you everything you.

Need to know.

It was hard, yeah, I mean we had I was pregnant during the Atlanta Olympics. Then I had my daughter Hannah in January, so that was just coming off maternity leave. And they were like, you're gonna do play by play, which I had never done in my life, right, And so I went up actually to Yukon and did a couple of games, sat there and observed this lovely woman named Doris Burke.

Right, and Terry Schindler was I think producing that game.

Yeah, so Terry Siller was reducing it.

I just remember like I couldn't even the words like couldn't even come out of my mouth.

I'm like, she'd scored. There's a bucket.

And the guy who really mentored me and was awesome was Marv Albert Talker.

From Free Yes.

The phone unbelievable.

I would you know back in the day, you know, send Marv my tape, my little practice game, some practice games, and then we would get on the phone and he would give me pointers.

But I mean, honestly, it was terrifying. Didn't be good for making things happen. You've got to come up on an all game launch. She was either scored points in the.

Bank, she penetrates becaushes off.

For her teammates. You can't say she's just a score.

Well, I was working for ESPN, I was doing the Women's Final four, and I was doing other than broadcasts on the ninety five team. So when NBC came to me to do the broadcast, I was a little hesitant because I was committed to ESPN. But NBC came in strong, and they came in quick, and they said, we've six year deal and we were going. And NBC was still really kind of being a network, was really kind of the top of being able to work for, you know,

So you had worked with, among other people, the great Keith Jackson. So you worked with the greatest, one of one of the very greatest of all time, and then you have to work with me totally inexperience, had never called play by play. Doris Burke helped me, do you know a few practice games Marv Albert helped me, do you know, gave me some pointers and stuff.

But I had never done it before in my life.

You had good connections.

I mean I was terrified. I got an ulcer that summer.

Well, remember we had to do that. We had to do that practice gig. We had that practice game. It was Anna game was a Milwaukee and I can't remember who it was, but that was our first you know, we had to get our timing together. We didn't know each other, I mean, you know, and it was hard and certainly not knowing the players, which I knew the players because I've seen them a long plays since they were eighteen years old. And but yeah, we I thought we had a good connection.

It's so exciting.

Hi, everybody had a storm, joined by Hall of Famer and and unfortunately the biggest star here in Los Angeles as a woman who grew up just blocked away from the great Western form and start at USC, Lisa Leslie.

As we saw last week.

Following the success of the We Got Next campaign, came the league's two drafts. The first was an elite draft. Every city needs a franchise player Swoops again, Cheryl Swoops, who grew up in Texas and starred at Texas Tech went to Houston. Lobo, Rebecca Lobo, who starred at Yukon, went to New York.

Leslie from That's a Tour was on.

Lisa Leslie, who grew up in Compton and start at usc was a natural fit for LA. There were two drafts also before that first season, because you had to figure out how to put this league together. So you have an elite draft, the purpose sending a player who might be a regional star to a city. So you have Cheryl Swoops in Houston, Rebecca Lobo in New York, and Lisa Leslian La, all of which make a lot of sense. And then you have a draft for college players and unsigned veterans.

So that was a really interesting.

Process, and I'm wondering what it was like for you announcing Tina Thompson a usc AS that first number one college pick two percent data.

Well, we're glad she came with us because we were in effect competing with players at that point with the American Basketball League the ABL, they were not as resourced as we were. They played in the Winner, they came out with very high player salaries, which in the end they couldn't support and so they ended up folding I think after their second season or so, and those players then came into the WNBA. But Tina, you know, Tina

Tina Thompson the MVP, the stars are out tonight.

She joined two other super stars in Cynthia Cooper and Cheryl Swoops.

Swoop was inching toward the first ever w NBA playoff triple double.

Oh you are the best in the world, Cheryl.

Right side.

We had eight teams. We knew more about women's basketball than our teams did, so we took a lot of liberties here in sort of spreading it around. So we took the best sixteen players of the time, which we thought, in our opinion, assigned two to each of the eight teams. And that that was how Houston got Cheryl and Cynthia.

That was on us.

We blew it.

We didn't realize how good Cynthia Cooper was.

Cooper driving the land.

Then they won more consecutive championship. Oh my gosh, we created a dynasty.

We created a dynasty, and you know, Cheryl, we put in Texas because that was a marketing decision, sure. And then the Elite Draft, which which you noted, was our second tier, where we then found what we thought were the next sixteen best players and put them in like a pool. And then we filled out the rest of the rosters with again the college draft and everybody else. So we just we needed to stock the teams to

To secure a postseason spot.

Now scoops to the left hand on the pump bags field off the Commets with the league's first dynasty, and the sports world much as me of a three peet and the comments would eventually win four championships in a row.

Cutting in through the hold. Nobody would be.

A new They were the conference rivals of Rebecca Lobo's New York Liberty in the East.

The point he gets on board back and Lowbo will lay that right.

In along with the Charlotte Sting and Cleveland Rockers. You obviously you were one of the faces of the new League. So you know, you've always had a lot of responsibility. You had, you know, a lot of pressure on you. Or was it more fun or did you feel like, dang man, I better deliver. Here they are they are making me one of the most prominent faces.

And also in the New York market, it.

Was more fun than it was anything else because of course this was also before social media and everything, so it's not like there was constant negativity being thrown into your pocket by Joe Schmoe from wherever, and so like, you know, we're getting to go to NBA All Star.

In the West, it was the Los Angeles Sparks, Phoenix Mercury, Sacramento Monarchs, and Utah Stars.

At NBC, it was our job to.

Introduce sports fans to the faces of the new league Annie, Lisa and I interviewed players for profiles to run at halftime, doing whatever we could to engage fans, and.

We all thought it was important, all of.

Us, I think, right that we needed to let the audience know who these incredible women are. And that's the purpose of profile type storytelling in general, which started, you know, at the Olympics, and then I wanted to bring that over into the WNBA because they were you know, yes, Rebecca Lobo and Lisa Leslie and Charles Soopster household names,

Weatherskinol Theresa Wellstreet because you're for that first half time piece.

She was in Lake Cmo playing you know, Italian ball, and and she she's now coaching in the w n b A, And it was important for us to have even for you know, for you to be doing interviews with some of these players prior to so in addition to your play by play, you worked in seamlessly you know, little anecdotal stories about each player and some of the rivals, and you know some of the players who played against each other in college, knowing all that, which seems second nature now.

In some cases, the stories wrote themselves.

Which's the advanced pass for three hits?

She's got ten.

Of the game.

And Cheryl Swoops is one of the one of the main stars. She's in that we got next campaign. She is all over everything promoting the league, and she's pregnant and she is not going to play for a while.

I think she came back a lot earlier than you know.

She's pretty superhuman and actually came back to play that first year. But that was probably a very, I'm imagining, you know, an interesting element to deal with as you were going into this first season.

I remember it was circa New Year's Day, nineteen ninety six. Renee Brown, who dear friend, who we hired, had been an assistant coach on the ninety six team, who I hired to be our player director, and so she was the one out there signing getting players for us to sign. And I remember her calling me and saying, are you sitting down? And I said okay, and she said big news. She said, Cheryl's expecting she's pregnant. And this was after we had signed her. We were using her in at

What does she do?

And she said June twenty first, she said she wants to just keep doing as much as she can. And I said, okay, so well, you know, just do what we have to do. And that's what we did, made sure she was okay. There's actually there was some creative things that were done to kind of as she got more pregnant, to sort of show her a little less from the bottom down and then more from the bottom up, from the waist up. And she was great. I mean,

She came back.

I think she was out for about six weeks hand if I'm not mistaken, yep, she was, and she came back. Her line that first came back wasn't all that spectacular, but with each passing game she got better and better better. Of course, they won the title that year, and she had no small role in that.

The first ever WNBA game took place as promised on June twenty first, nineteen ninety seven, at the LA Forum, home.

Of the Lakers. It was Rebecca Lobo's New York.

Liberty against Lisa Leslie's La Spars Marque.

Matchup between Leslie and Lobo as the two cornerstone franchise of the Women's NBA square off here this afternoon in the debut game, and now here for the player introductions, our PA announcer Roger.

The New York Liberty defeated the Sparks that day, sixty seven to fifty seven.

Lads Lobo and Lobo at the basket of sort, Rebecca Lobo with sixteen.

Points, the Lobos on the top sixty two.

Now I called that game, I called the first season for NBC, and I remember being terrified, absolutely terrified.

As a player. What was your experience in that game?

Excitement and nerves because like I grew up as a Celtics band watching Celtics Lakers, Celtics Lakers, So I'm in I'm in this, this arena that I've only seen on television before, and some of like the iconic memories I have as a kid as a kid watching.

The late banners are hanging from the ceiling and all that, right exactly, and like.

We're on the team bus and this is back in the day. By the way, it was great to be involved in the WNBA in the early days because especially that first year and second year, when you were on the road, you were staying where the teams put their male counterparts. So we were staying I think at the Ritz or the Four Seasons because that's where the Knicks state. So like that first year we were I mean, we were flying commercially, but in a lot of ways we're

Uh.

And then so but yeah, going out and you know, doing media and all of that stuff the day prior, and uh, when the game was finally there, it was like and there were celebrities court side, which I had never experienced, but they were there that day at the Forum, and just being like, wow, it's here, but not feeling and overwhelming anything other than it's we get to finally play basketball.

For me, it was somewhat terrifying, surreal and thrilling.

Here's a valve.

It was an amazing day and night. We had a small we had a team from the league office that of course trooped out there to see it. I was with my dear friend Rick Welts, as I mentioned, who was this president of NBA properties at the time. We were sort of joined at the hip in the year leading in, so we were out there together. I remember, you know, visiting Jerry Buss before the game in the

Fine Leslie gets into it.

I remember the other thing. Two things. I remember that the anthem singer didn't arrive on time. I think it was Jeffrey Osborne. Maybe I'm wrong, Oh my god.

Stuck in traffic, right, stuck in traffic, yes, stuck in traffic, and we just waited and waited, and then we ended up they ended up unearthing some scratchy recording of the anthem, so we used that.

You know, you know, usually you will have this very celebrity singer. We didn't have that. And then I remember it not being a very good game. I think the players were just so nervous and you may remember that too. They were just nervous. And Penny Toller made the first shot and.

The first basket it do WRNBA history is scored by Penny Teller at.

Long Beach Steak, and everyone wanted to know was Lisa gonna dunk? You know, and that unfortunately, that was the storyline going in.

And the fans. I just remember the fans coming. We had a very good crowd. It wasn't a sell out there, but it was probably at least thirteen thousand or so, which was very very good crowd, and they were buying stuff. And I remember the programs that we sold for that first year that we got Next on on the cover. It was just it was you were teary eyed because all the hard work had paid off. It really happened.

This is really awesome.

I have talked to a lot of people that have come in and a lot of basketball people. There's so much excitement you almost feel like you're playing. Everybody is so fire.

On the broadcast side, we had back to back games, first La then Phoenix the very next day.

Welcome to Phoenix, Arizona. Summertime here.

And the hottest ticket in this hot town is that for the Phoenix Mercury as they are.

I mean the final attendance in LA. I think they were expecting twelve that fans, and the final attendance in LA was over fourteen thousand, so they were fans like in the upper decks. And then talk about Phoenix, they had the Suns had established this incredible fan base. And then how about New York, the New York Liberty. That was a great atmosphere too, Right, what do you remember about it because we did their home opener.

Well, first of all, I want to go to you know, Phoenix, and Cheryl Miller just blows everybody away. I mean with her enthusiasm and her excitement. One of the great names in a Hall of Famer of the game could coach and you know her second year they were in the finals against Houston, and you know she was there four years. But you know, players would just they said, we'll go through a wall for you know, just the different players

Rebecca Lobo.

We last saw her as an Olympian winning gold in Atlanta along with her teammate Lisa Leslie. The two of them went against each other in practice and now they get a chance to square off as professional.

So I did four games in a row and then winded up back in New York at the end of the week where the Liberty had their home opener, which was in that and I was with Dave. David came to that one, so my husband and my mother and my mother in law and I sat with David and Diane stern A mod and were shot and Felicia were shot. They were to get and that's who we sat with at the game, and they were just piling into the guard, piling in, and David it was a looking around like stunned.

It was a moment.

I'll never forget.

The paint he gets a board back and lay back.

The New York Liberty had an incredible fan base that first season, complete with court side celebrities just like the Knicks, Tyra Banks, Rosie O'Donnell, Joan Jet who actually made voodoo dollphs of the opposing team. Now, of course the Liberty plays at Barkley's, but they began at Madison Square Garden. So you play your first home game against Phoenix on June twenty ninth, and that's at the Garden, winning that one to a sixty five to fifty seven. There were

The memory I have, The strongest memory I have from that first home game was we had spent I don't know, a couple weeks prior. We had gone to some studio and filmed our introduction that was going to play up on the jumbo tron at the time, like there's different ones of us stepping outside of a skyscraper and like one of us catches the ball and passes to somebody else who steps out of a skryscraper. At the time, it was like really cool. It's like, oh, it was cool.

That first season, you lead the team and blocked shots and rebounds. That season, as I mentioned, the ratings were good. And then we get to the playoffs, which at the time consisted of teams one through four, and Team one would play Team four and Team two would play Team three, and then the winners of those games would go on to play for the championship. You end up playing the Houston comments Moment's.

Late at thirty to twenty eight.

Arcade and the Cheryl swoops again one of the one of the major stars is on the other side. But really what the comments were about was a player who had been overseas for years, Cynthia Cooper.

Our team points off the beautiful shot.

She kind of became a revelation that season. You guys had a nice rivalry and it had the comments number that season before the championship game.

Right, yeah, And I can remember hosting Houston at the Garden, and I think that's another game that we sold out eighteen thousand or whatever it was, and we were we finished second in the Eastern Conference because Houston was in the Eastern Conference and the early years of the league, and so first round of the playoffs, as you mentioned, single elimination, we go and play at Phoenix. I think, yeah, it was at Phoenix, win that game and then we

Yeah, so it's not season.

She doesn't have time to like work her way in for a couple of months in play right, Yes.

But she was still very prettut she played. But they've got this player who I'm like, who's Cynthia Cooper? And how come nobody in the league can guard her off a pick and roll?

Cooper Cooper driving dishing it up?

What's a lab One night.

That first season was short, just twenty eight games over two months. In the end, it was the Comments versus the Liberty for the first ever w NBA title. Do you remember, because I do, specifically the championship. It was just a championship game, you know, the way they had set it up. One game and they defeat the New York Liberty. And I remember sitting in the summit in Houston. My mom was there, so I was able to bring

That feared there was incredible.

And I panic for a moment, like, wow, I better say something profound, And I think I said something like the Houston Comments have won the first of the NBA Championship.

Thanks Lisa on the Houston Comments.

We'll go down in history as the first ever w NBA champions.

But you do you remember the feeling of just like, we worked so hard that season. We had production meetings that lasted four hours. We were grinding week after week dealing with all this pressure. Do you sort of remember the feeling of as that confetti was falling and it kind of as that season wound to a close.

What you were feeling, Well, it's.

So much builds up to it. And like you talked about ninety five, ninety six, now you're ninety seven, and you know, people took a lot of athletes will say, you know, what we do on the court, what you get to see, you don't see behind the scenes. What got us there, the hard work, like you said, even with us, the work that we did behind the scenes. But for me, it was euphoria, honestly, meaning the game as long as I have and seeing where it came from and all the different people that have tried to

Today we're all part of history.

He knew that.

I mean, did you.

Envision at the time, because you made it to the championship Games, you think, oh, we'll get it next year.

We'll get it next year. We'll get it next year.

What was it like, kind of running up against that juggernaut every year?

It was just I'm not sure exactly what it was. I do, however, remember maybe their third championship, maybe their third or fourth championship, and we're getting ready to play them one of those years. So we didn't make it to it in ninety eight, so maybe ninety nine or two thousand, whenever. Whenever, those one of those years, we

It's so believable, isn't it. Crazy that the Liberty have never won a title. I know, I know, you know, I mean, this could be the year. But yeah, it's kind of wild to think, like, here we are two and a half decades later and they still haven't won a title.

Well, and it's just incredible to see the Liberty's journey because they've been such an important franchise to the success of the WNBA since the beginning, you know, a super team last year playing in the finals, you know, selling out Barkley Center, and then this year, you know, we really have a potential to go for a deep run, if not potentially win a championship as well. But it's in some ways it kind of mirrors like the WNB.

How proud are you of your part in that legacy of the WABA which is continuing and ongoing obviously.

Yeah, it was. It was my overwhelming feeling the bubble season of twenty twenty, where the women's players use their voice every single turn that they could to stand up for what was right. My overwhelming feeling was I am so proud to have been a part of this league from the beginning and to have these women in a place now where if they see something is wrong, they're

It's been a great opportunity for us all to be here at the very beginning of this season of something special and something that will impact sports for years to come. Once again, the final score from Houston to come at sixty five.

Pretty sure. We cried quite a bit that summer.

Yeah, we did.

Of just a relief and pressure or you know, you talk about the pressure on the players, but there was. There was a huge amount of pressure on us. This was David Stern's baby, this was national TV, this was the first.

Year of the league. We hadn't done it before.

There was an enormous amount of pressure to get it right. And I think looking back on it, what I'm really proud of is that we covered it like the.

NBA was covered.

We we treated it like a major sporting event. We treated it like it deserved to be treated. And listen, I can't even we poured our heart and soul into that. I mean, if nothing else, just the effort, Yeah, we tried. The passion was there in spades, right.

Yeah, And there were some you know, great moments, and yes, you know, I know I made some mistakes along the way that season. You know, you just learning, come on, yeah, who is live basketball? And yeah, you know, but you know, overall, I think it made an impact. We you know, getting to know those players better in some of the coaches like Nancy darsh at New York, and you know, just

And would have a storied career.

As general manager of the Phoenix Mercury, she built her own champions winning titles in two thousand and seven, oh nine and twenty fourteen.

Where do you see the league going now?

On the heels of this incredibly successful NCAA Tournament of the Stars, really rising tide lifts all boats.

There are casual sports.

Fans now who can name multiple rookies coming into the league. With Caitlin Clark leading the way and teams literally changing the venues of their games for when she comes into town. Charter Flights have now been approved an expansion team in Toronto.

Where do you see this league going?

Well, you know, you go.

Back to day one with bel Ackerman and and all the other presidents we've had and Donna Orangeer and now we've got Kathy Ngelberg who's done a terrific job as far as getting sponsors and so forth, and people locking in. The sponsorships have been huge. But you know, people used to ask me, oh, where's the WNBA going? It's a

Whether the increased interest in women's basketball continues to manifest itself in larger salaries and longer seasons remains to be seen, but there is no doubt significant progress has been made on the backs of all of those who came before. Next Time on NBA DNA, The Spectacular Return of the Los Angeles Lakers NBA DNA with Hannah Storm is a production of iHeart Podcasts, The NBA, and Brainstorm and Productions. The show is written and executive produced by me Hannah Storm,

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