Lower The Rim For Women's Basketball
It's natural, after having unprecedented success, to try and build on that success. It could mean doing more of what you did previously, or tweak something that could be better. The WNBA and Women's college basketball just had their best seasons ever in terms of viewership and popularity.
How does the league build off of the Caitlin Clark effect? NBA Hall of Fame center Shaquille O'Neal has an idea. Appearing on Angel Reese's podcast Unapologetically Angel, O'Neal suggested that women's basketball lower their rims.
"A pretty girl dunking on the rim? I'm watching that all day."
O'Neal has been advocating for this change since before this past historic season. It gets scoffed at, and even called sexist, or demeaning to the female players. People who refuse to entertain the idea for these reasons need to get off their high horse and think like a business person, and not a college freshman at their first ever protest.
No Different Than What's been Done In The Past
The truth of the matter is, women's basketball has already put measurements and dimensions in place to make the game easier for women. The basketball is smaller than what men use (28.5" versus 29.5" for the men). The diameter of the rim has stayed the same, meaning there's more space for a women's ball to go in the hoop than a men's ball.
The women's three point is shorter than the men's (22'2" versus 23'9"). This means that that women get the same amount of points for shooting the ball a foot and a half closer than the men. Where is the outrage over shorter three-point lines and smaller balls? Where are the people calling the existing rules sexist or demeaning?
The Women's Game Needs Male Viewers
The boom in viewership over the past season is not because more women have been watching the game, it's because more men have. The WNBA Finals had a 115% increase in viewership over last year, and 56% of WNBA viewers are men (this number is up about 5% from last year).
Sports fans are predominantly male, and in order to grow, leagues of all genders need to cater to that demographic. Men like slam dunks more than they like a perfectly executed layup. In order to make this act more frequent in the women's game, the hoops need to be lowered, or women need to start growing.
At the end of the day, it's a business decision. In a perfect world the women's league would have the same three point line, the same size ball, and the same height rim as the men, without losing fans. The business world is not perfect though, and sometimes hard decisions, unpopular decisions, need to be made.
If a giant blowup dinosaur in front of a store attracts bigger crowds, and those crowds spend money at the store, then the store puts one out front regardless of whether they like it or nowt. That's smart business. Smart business for women's basketball is dropping the rims to 9'6" and having a WNBA slam dunk contest during the all-star break.