ABSTRACT
June 21, 1997, marked the inaugural season of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA). Although a century of women’s basketball-including some unsuccessful professional leagues-preceded the WNBA, this time promised to be different. The official slogan of the WNBA, “We Got Next,” assured basketball fans of not only a televised team sports league during the lagging summer off-season of the National Basketball Association (NBA) but also a future for women’s basketball, complete with high-powered demonstrations of athletic skill and competition. In 1999, following the debut of the WNBA, the U.S. media enthusiastically covered the victory of the U.S. women’s team in World Cup Soccer, and the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena, made (and continue to make) headlines for both their superior tennis playing and their fashion politics. It is an expected part of middle-class suburban life in the United States for young girls to participate in team sports such as softball and soccer, and the female athletes competing for the United States in the 2004 Olympics had many more victories-both as individuals and on teams-than the male athletes. It is clear that women’s sports are no longer a peripheral event but rather an important part of mainstream culture in the United States.
