However, one of the things that makes women’s tennis more watchable than other professional women’s sports is that the difference between female professional tennis players and your perennial-local-club-tournament-winning-player (to say nothing of weekend warriors) is even more extreme. Your very good local player wouldn’t win a point against someone like Shaparova or Ivanovic unless Sharapova or Ivanovic broke a string on a service return (or hit a ball out due to boredom).

The skill level with which female tennis players play is astonishing and, to me, therefore, worth viewing. That male tennis players are several factors more astonishing doesn’t take anything away from the women.

It seems to me that the gulf between your very-good local male basketball player and professional women’s basketball player isn’t as big, if it even exists at all, which is why I don’t watch it.

There was a recent article on men’s players at connecticut who helped the women’s team practice. The men were some of the best campus basketball players not on the men’s team. And they were distinctly inferior to the women’s team. They could dunk, and the women can’t, but they weren’t getting many opportunities to dunk.

I really prefer men’s basketball, because the athleticism and the dunk make a big difference to watching the game, but that’s not the same as saying the men are more skilled overall.

Finally, another sport that gets added to the popular women’s sports is volleyball.

Forgot about volleyball…that’s actually interesting to watch, although I probably would only watch it if I happened to see it on TV. I’d go out of my way to watch women’s soccer or rugby or gymnastics, though. The WNBA and women’s NCAA basketball just makes me want to turn the channel because the talent disparity compared the the men’s game is so great…similar to the way I can’t stand watching MLS because I’ve seen too many English Premier League games not to notice that MLS is a worse product.

Right now the final four weekend is about as good as it could be. The Women play on Friday and Sunday the Men on Saturday and Monday.

I know that but honestly i have no idea when the earlier rounds are played. If they were played at about the same time as the mens games - i would be even further from playing any attention. I mean during these four days I don’t pay attention to any non-M.Bball sports news. Manning could be traded to the Pats and I wouldn’t notice until next Monday. Having the games on the same day would be a killer.

And unfair to those (few) schools which seem to excel in both (Tenn, U Conn, Purdue, Duke, UNC)

And it might be hard for the NCAA to pull it all off at the same time…

I also the point made about saturation is valid. No one pays attention to the NIT either. America only has enough interest to watch one tournament, not three.

Finally, another sport that gets added to the popular women’s sports is volleyball. It’s another sport where feminity can be retained.

Check out the book “Andy Roddick Beat Me With a Frying Pan” by Todd Gallagher. Gallagher tries to verify or refute common outlandish sports questions (like “how good would a baseball line-up of all midgets be?” or “would a morbidly obese hockey goalie be any good?”). Anyway, he has a section on the difference in athletic ability between men and women. I was quite surprised to see how great the difference really is.

That being said, the only women’s sports I enjoy watching are Olympic ice hockey (any sport where sub-5′10″ players can be stars should translate to the women’s game pretty well) and curling (because there are a couple hot chicks on the American team). Of course, if these sports were featured more than once every four years I’m not so sure I’d pay as much attention. Oh, and no, I’m not Canadian.

The reason I don’t watch women’s basketball is the same reason, essentially, that I don’t ever watch international men’s basketball (unless team USA is playing). The game is slower, it’s below the rim, it’s perimeter focused, the athleticism and “wow” factor just isn’t present, and that after watching the NBA for so long, lowering my standards to accommodate a game that doesn’t provide the things I like to watch seems absolutely wasteful.

I’d agree with some of the above comments about women’s tennis, though. There are a number of things that distinguish it from the unwatchable sleepfest of women’s basketball. The fact that the game is slower is truly an advantage, I can only watch Andy Roddick win games with consecutive ace serves so long before I get bored. And, of course, sex appeal is a real factor. You might think that women’s basketball would supply that same appeal, but it really doesn’t.

It’s important to admit that men’s basketball and women’s basketball are fundamentally different games that are played in totally different ways. It’s not the fact that women are playing that makes it less popular and watchable, it’s the fact that the game isn’t as entertaining. The reasons that it’s less entertaining coincide with the characteristics that women bring to the game, but that’s not the same as sexism.

Personally, I’ll watch women’s college ball before I’ll watch the NBA, because the NBA is just putrid, but I’ll almost never watch a women’s game that doesn’t involve my MSU Spartans. (I will watch a men’s game that I don’t care about) But then again, I think I maybe oggle a wider range of women then the general public, too. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a WNBA game, though.

As for having the women’s NCAA on ESPN as much as it is, I like it. I can’t imagine the horrible crap ESPN would fill its airtime with if it never showed women’s games. “Who’s Now?” anyone?

Then Coach Flanagan was hired to coach the women’s team. When Flanagan coached at Eldorado HS, EHS was the exact opposite from UNM. The women’s b-ball team at EHS got all the attention because they won almost every game and the state title year after year. He turned the UNM team around and got people around here excited about women’s basketball. Now, the women’s team at UNM makes the postseason often, while the men struggled for a long time and are just now making it back to the postseason. The UNM women’s games are as much of a draw as the men’s. Men’s attendance actually dropped for a while, but is now getting back to occasional sellouts under new HC Steve Alford.

The UNM women’s team got popular without any forced media coverage or pundits shoving the game down our throats, yakking about how it’s so unfair. It was accomplished because the women’s team got good, made some noise, and the fan base decided to support UNM women’s basketball on their own. You can’t make people care about a sport or a team. Winning does seem to attract fans though.

As for the femininity argument, not quite sure I agree with that. That’s what the cheerleaders are for. I think it has more to do with how much more vertical (dunks, blocked shots) the men’s game is, which almost everyone finds more exciting to watch.

Maybe women could take performance enhancing drugs to level the playing field but do we want a bunch of women with Barry Bonds foreheads? Frightening thought.

That said,it bothers me the NCAA is a taxpayer funded minor league.The best go to school 1-2 years and then the pros.

To the NBA’s credit, they tried to set the age limit for incoming players at 21 (so the colleges had three years to develop players or weed out the non-hackers) but the player’s union shot it down during collective bargaining.

Honestly, I just wish the NBA would work the kinks out of their developmental league and find a way to have each NBA team get their own farm team. I think that would drastically improve the overall quality of play at the NBA level as well and give players a chance to actually develop.

Basketball, on the other hand, has devolved into an overpowering spectacle where teams run from one end to the other, score and then sprint back to try to prevent (and usually fail) the other team from scoring. It’s simply not slow enough and doesn’t offer enough opportunity for on-the-spot tactical changes to be allow the smarter, yet physically less adept people to shine.

At the NBA level I blame a combination of the 24 second shot clock and the short stays in college for many of the players. The NBA isn’t as much of a learning environment as the college game is, the practices tend to be less hands-on and instructive, there’s more personnel turnover on teams which can throw off chemistry….basically, if the individual players haven’t honed their game by the time they get to the NBA it’s much tougher for them to do so once they’re there because players who haven’t established themselves early get buried behind guys who have a proven track record and may not see an opportunity for playing time again.

The 24 second clock adds to this by pushing teams to put the ball only in the hands of a couple of players rather than to work it around to find the better shot. I suspect it’s the reason you see so many isolation plays run and why athleticism is often more important at the NBA level than skill…there’s just not enough time to consistently run a good offense, so game management skills become less important…you have to move it to the other end, then gun it up. The shot clock’s set so low to increase possessions and create more scoring, but I honestly wouldn’t be bothered to see them put about 6 more seconds on the shot clock, or even just match it up with the college game. Scoring might drop a little, but I think we’d see a dramatic rise in the overall quality of play.

It also wouldn’t hurt to fire about half the referees in the NBA, since a lot of them apparently haven’t even read the rule book.

‘Course, now that my Trojans choked and got bounced in the first round by the freaking Wildkittens, I’m not sure how much joy I’m going to have in watching the TarFoots and the bRuins eke their way towards playing each other here in my own hometown on April 7.

If it’s any consolation, Kansas State is a very difficult team for anyone to beat when both Walker and Beasley are on their games. Walker’s so inconsistent, though, that I think they go down in the second round.

And I sympathize with your apathy. Every season my interest in the NCAA tournament evaporates the second Kansas gets eliminated. Thankfully, I don’t think that’s going to happen this year

I think all of your points are valid. Her position about playing the tournaments together is intriguing but ultimately unworkable. Now that the NCAA prefers to play in large domed stadiums instead of traditional arenas, there just aren’t that many cities that can host a men’s Final Four. The hotels in cities like St. Louis and Indianapolis already are packed to the gills with just one event in town.

The 12 year-old girl argument held water 30 years ago, but it doesn’t today. Women have ample scholarship opportunities and the women’s tournament is widely covered on TV. Why do women’s basketball players ‘deserve’ more coverage than men’s soccer players? Am I a bad person for failing to watch college cross country? It’s just silly. Women’s basketball is less fun to watch, period.

The only male sports fans that ever extol the virtues of women’s basketball are old white guys who go on about fundamentals and don’t like the speed and brash nature of today’s athletes.

As for “the 12-year-old girl shooting hoops on the driveway,” I’d lay money that 9 times out of 10 she’d rather go see the NBA or NCAA-M over a women’s game.