From Brett LoGiurato at the Star-Ledger: Liberty work to build fan base at Prudential Center to Madison Square Garden levels
Getting settled, and attracting the crowd numbers they were used to playing in front of at the Garden, have been challenges in the first month of the Liberty’s season.
The Liberty have struggled to recoup much of the fan base that consistently made Madison Square Garden one of the highest-attended WNBA arenas, with paid attendance averages of 11,926 fans per game in their first 14 years there. The Liberty, who continue a four-game homestand when they host Connecticut tonight at 7 p.m., have averaged 8,255 fans this season at the Prudential Center.
A skeptical WHB note: I’ll wait for Queenie’s report before I believe that average.
From Odeen Domingo at the Arizona Republic: New WNBA President Laurel Richie hopes to take league to new heights
Q: What is being emphasized more in growing the fan base? Is it converting the skeptics or starting from the ground up with young kids?
A: I think it is a great experience for fans to grow up and experience the league and be a WNBA fan from the age of 7 and be one until 80. But I think there are still adult audiences that are untapped. And some of them fall into the category of “unaware, unengaged” and some of them fall into the “skeptics that need to be converted.” I use myself as an example. I spent 30 years going to Cleveland Cavaliers games. So I consider myself a basketball fan. In New York, the Liberty team exists there. I support a lot of women’s causes. I have gone at least once to every single sporting event in New York City that you can go to. But I never went to a Liberty game. So I spend a lot of time thinking about – that shouldn’t be and how did that happen and how can it not happen.