Good Luck PWHL: Hope You Make It Big-- Without Public Money
Depending on whom you believe women’s hockey is going to be THE thing in 2024. The Professional Women’s Hockey League launched on New Years Day with a 72-game schedule, semi-serious money, a fawning media and the goodwill of governments and mens sports leagues. What would be news is if they made it without government support.
As if two signify its significance women’s hockey pioneer Cassie Campbell Pascall has dumped her HNIC gig to join the league in an advisory capacity. With teams in Boston, New York/Connecticut, St. Paul, Minnesota, Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa, the PWHL is going to get as good a push as possible. The support of TV networks is advertised as an asset as well.
The key to their success, as we have written on several occasions, will not be glowing media stories, feminist narratives or even traditional hockey fans. The success will be predicated on whether their fellow women decide to grasp this league in a way they have not done for other female sports leagues.
As acerbic comedian Bill Burr has pointed out about the WNBA’s failure to achieve a wider audience: “Where are all the feminists? That place should be packed with feminists — faces painted, wearing jerseys, going f—ing nuts like the guys do! None of you went to the f—ing games. You failed them. Not me. Not men — women failed the WNBA.”
So… what will be different in the PWHL? Despite the efforts of the Olympics to boost the sport, women’s hockey remains a niche sport practiced seriously in two nations— Canada/ USA. Outside of well-attended challenge matches between the two, there will be no stars from other counties in the PWHL.
Everyone has heard the stories about boys midget-level teams beating the national squad. Typically the earnest competition of women’s hockey is all light, no heat. Lots of scrambling and skating but little sizzle in comparison with the men’s leagues they’re hoping to challenge for eyeballs. We wish them good luck. But let them burn through something other than public funds in this challenging financial proposition.
“We have a long time to get them to where they need to be,” says PWHL board member Stan Kasten. “I’m cognizant we’re going to make mistakes. But every mistake you see, ask if we’re still at that mistake a year from now.”
What we don’t wish for is a continuation of the arguments about equal pay with the men’s product. This was pursued by the U.S. women’s soccer team led by the highly irritating Megan Rapinoe. As we wrote in July of 2019, “So where is the money supposed to come from to equal Megan Rapinoe’s pay with Lionel Messi or Paul Pogba? Clearly, women’s soccer does not generate the money men’s soccer does. In calling their treatment unfair, the women players seemed to be implying that public money should be shifted to benefit them.”
As we wrote, “The problem Megan Rapinoe and her colleagues have— one that they share with women in many, but not all sports— is that they can’t even make the sale to their fellow women. Statistically, women are 51 percent of the population. Yet, outside a few sports like figure skating or during Olympiads, their fellow women take a pass on buying tickets or cable TV subscriptions to watch them.”
Not much has changed in this regard since 2019. There are huge new piles of money coming into sports from digital rights and gambling, and men still generate the lion’s share. How nowhere is women’s sport? They’ve legalized gambling on women’s sports— and still no one goes near them.
Salty comedian Bill Burr admires the skills and dedication of women athletes, but he says there’s only one culprit in this wonky economics. “Look at the WNBA: they have been playing in front of 300 to 400 people a night for a quarter of a century. Not to mention, it’s a male-subsidized league. We gave you a league, and none of you showed up.
Ladies, name your top five WNBA players of all time. Name five WNBA teams. Name the WNBA team in your city. You can’t do it!” You’re playing in a 20,000-seat arena — 1,500 people show up. That’s not a good night!”
Look, if people want the emotional feminist argument, fill your boots. In the land of good will and virtuous notions Christine Sinclair should get the entertainment money generated by women consumers. But she’s not.
That money, as Burr has pointed out, is going to entertainment vehicles like The Kardashians and RuPaul. Advertisers follow the audience and, despite equal pay settlements across sport, the money is not going to women’s sports. And when we hear political radicals assail men’s sports for drowning out women’s sports, we say, physician heal thyself. The cure lies in your hands, not men’s.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his new book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.