American media personality Bill Simmons has ripped into the WNBA for the scheduling of their first two finals matches, which saw the New York Liberty tie the series at 1-1 after a game two victory.
Having coasted into a nearly 20-point lead in the first half, Liberty fought off a fierce comeback and a late 12-0 run sealed their 80-66 win thanks to Breanna Stewart. She stood out with 21 points, eight rebounds, five assists and a finals record of seven steals.
The league has experienced a huge popularity boom this year, partly due to the emergence of Indiana Fever superstar in her Rookie of the Year campaign, coming out on top after an early battle with the injured Angel Reese.
However, many fans have complained that they were forced to turn off coverage of the finals. And not because neither Clark nor Reese were playing either.
Game one tipped off just 15 minutes prior to kick-off on a Thursday Night Football NFL game between the San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks, while game two similarly got underway on Sunday during the NFL’s busy week six slate.
The scheduling marked a sharp change from the regular season strategy when highly anticipated matches would be kept to ‘quieter’ evenings in order to dominate the TV viewership.
And Simmons has led the backlash against the WNBA for not capitalising on what he described as the “Caitlin boom”.
Speaking on his podcast, he explained: “The WNBA had this amazing moment this season to get as many eyeballs as possible on their most important games, and stuck to the schedule that they did 15 years ago… And completely blew it. I actually wanted to watch those games and there’s no way I’m watching anything other than football on a Sunday. This isn’t rocket science.
“Friday night’s gonna be your awesome night. Put something great on that. Wednesday night is another awesome one, you’re not going against anything… You have a chance to blow this league out and make it really a pretty mainstream league. It’s not going to happen going against the NFL.”
