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Media
Articles:
 PlanetOut.com
Monday, May 7, 2001
WNBA
Team Reaches Out to Lesbians
Barbara
Dozetos, Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network
Monday, May 7, 2001 / 07:34 PM
The
L.A. Sparks are acknowledging what many have known for
a long time: lesbians could be a lucrative fan base
for women's hoops.
A
women's professional basketball team has launched a
new marketing strategy that involves direct outreach
to lesbians.
The
Women's National Basketball Association's Los Angeles
Sparks, the Los Angeles Lakers' sister franchise,
added lesbians to its existing
"family-oriented" marketing plan last week.
"We
want to market this basketball team to fans whoever
they might be, be they an inner-city youth basketball
team or someone of an alternate lifestyle," Joe
McCormack, vice president of the Los Angeles Lakers
organization, told the Los Angeles Times.
The new
campaign kicked off last Friday with a rally staged in
partnership with the nation's largest women's dance
club, Girl Bar Los Angeles. An estimated crowd of
1,200 to 1,500 showed up to get players' autographs,
stock up on team paraphernalia and buy season tickets.
Sparks
team member DeLisha Milton told the Times she was
surprised by the attention the outreach to the lesbian
community was getting, "If we want to keep
getting paid to play basketball, we've got to get
fans. That's what we're doing -- getting fans to come
to our games. That's all."
Girl
Bar founder Sandy Sachs, however, said the move had
wider significance. Women's sports, she told the
Times, have traditionally tried to distance themselves
from the perception that female athletes are largely
lesbians. "The LPGA wants nothing to do with
us," said Sachs, who markets a trip to the annual
Nabisco Dinah Shore Golf Classic to lesbians.
"This is precedent setting," Sachs told the
Times.
"Women's
sports have moved beyond the old stereotypes,"
Sparks General Manager Penny Toler told the Times.
"We don't sell tickets for Section D, Rows 1-4
for black fans and Section C, Rows 1-4 for white fans
and Section F, Rows 1-4 for lesbian fans. We just want
fans.
"This
isn't about marketing to sexual lifestyles," she
said. "It's about marketing to a group of people
we think will buy tickets."
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