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WNBA FINALS: SPARKS VS LYNX

October 9, 2016

Lisa Borders

Minneapolis, Minnesota

THE MODERATOR: Welcome, everyone, to the 2016 WNBA Finals presented by Verizon. Thank you for coming. We will begin momentarily with remarks from Lisa Borders.

LISA BORDERS: Good afternoon, everyone. Let me thank you all for being here. This is an exciting day we've all been waiting for, the tip-off of the Finals for the 2016 season. We're really excited. We've had the privilege of having Verizon be our presenting sponsor for this year, and we are delighted that they are with us.

Let me start by congratulating the two teams that are here, the Minnesota Lynx and certainly the LA Sparks. The ownership, the leadership and certainly the players are to be saluted and congratulated. This has been an awesome season. There is deep talent on both sides of this equation, and it promises to be an exciting Finals series.

This is our landmark season, the 20th season. We are still a very young league, but we have put a stake in the ground for 20 years. It's been exciting from the beginning when we rolled out our Watch Me Work campaign to our No. 1 draft pick Breanna Stewart, all the way to today with our Top 20 at 20. I think it's a nice touch to bring back players who helped lay the foundation for who we are today, and frankly for the success we will continue to enjoy for generations to come.

These are 144 of the best athletes in the world. It doesn't get any better than our leaders. They've helped us grow the game. We've grown a passionate fan base, and we have grown with additional partners. So let me talk about a couple of the things that we've done this year, which I think have changed the way the game is being played and has heightened the interest for our fans, so we started with our offensive rebound. We changed the shot clock from 24 seconds to 14 seconds. Many of you know, we looked back at three years of data to determine just how long it actually took for teams to shoot the ball after an offensive rebound. So we changed from 24 to 14 seconds, and it has increased the pace of the game.

So let me read a couple of the changes or a couple of the benefits of that. We finished our regular season with the highest per-game scoring average in history at 81.9, the highest per-game number of field goals made at 29.8. In addition, we had the field goal percentage was the highest in history at 44.1, as well as our free-throw percentage at 79.8, and then, of course, assists at 17.6.

So fundamentally, the game is stronger than it's ever been. Our players are deeply engaged, and they are producing at accelerated rates.

And then when you look at the quality of play from an offensive standpoint, many of you know, because you've watched the first and second round of single elimination, our semifinals, you saw that we had some of the highest scoring games in the history of the league. You saw the Lynx score 113 points. Did you see them bust the clock? Did you all not see that? They did an amazing job.

So we are excited about that. Chicago did the same thing with 108 points. It is always exciting for fans when we see that, but the players love it, as well.

Let me mention one other major change that we all have seen, and that was the format change for Playoffs. You all know that we had two single-elimination rounds and then the semifinals, and here we are at the Finals. Each of our teams was eligible and available to play in these Playoffs, but what we did was say, it doesn't matter what conference you're in, we're going to take the top eight teams and put them into the playoff schedule.

You saw what happened; it was a greater sense of urgency with a single-elimination round in rounds 1 and 2. It was different, and our fans seemed to like it. Our players are getting used to it. Like all things, it takes some time, but we really appreciated that the players took a real embrace of this innovation.

So here we are today with the two teams with the best averages for wins and losses. The Lynx come in at 28-6 at 82 percent, the Sparks come in and 26-8 at 79 percent. That's pretty amazing, No. 1 and No. 2 in the league, and here they are getting ready to play today.

We're excited about all of that from a product standpoint. Let me make just a couple of points from a business perspective. I've had the privilege now of serving as president for just over six months, and I want to give a tip of the hat to my predecessors. There were three, and each of them brought unique talents to this job. They laid some incredible foundation for me and for those of us who have the privilege of leading and working in the league today.

But when I look at this year, I come, as you all know, from the corporate sector. I've worked in all three. But most recently from the corporate sector, and we all decided that we would look at this through the business lens.

Many of you have asked, well, how is the business doing. I am happy to report that all business metrics are positive, and the league is in the best shape it's been in in a very long time.

So our attendance is up, as you know, about 4.6 percent. The ESPN, ESPN 2 and all of our broadcast partners are happy that those metrics are up 11 percent. Web traffic is up 22 percent. When we look at social media, even beyond the traditional WNBA.com, it's the brightest star in our crown of achievements. Most of those metrics are up more than 100 percent, some of them 200 percent. So we recognize that this is a tool that we have not always had. Social media wasn't here 10 years ago or 15 years ago.

But it's certainly here today, and it offers us an opportunity to not only capture content but share it broadly beyond our traditional broadcast partners.

You guys have been amazing in covering us, and we thank you for that. We invite you to continue not only today and this series but for years to come. But we will complement and augment what you do with our social media platforms. So you will see that more and more in the future because our players are able to participate, our fans are able to participate. We all know that social media basically democratizes everyone's voice, so everyone can collaborate on the success that we are having and share their perspective on what we're doing well and what we can improve upon.

So just to recap: From a product standpoint on the floor, the game is stronger than it's ever been. Our players have done amazingly well with the format that we put in place this year, and the business is incredibly healthy, and we are delighted and excited that we are here to see two of our best teams play together in this finals series.

Let me stop there and open the floor for any questions that folks might have.

Q. Earlier this season you mentioned listening to leadership in the league and using your public service experience to help determine the needs of the league, so what have you determined, and how are you going to use the business strategies as you suggested for maybe some of the short-term or long-term goals?
LISA BORDERS: Sure, and thank you for the question. I've had the privilege of traveling to every team and visiting them in their home market, which I think is very helpful so you get perspective because every market is different. We all love sports. It's one of two international languages, but it translates a little bit differently in every market.

What I think is consistent across markets is that everyone needs more fans in the arena. The game is extraordinary, but you need to be in the arena to experience it, or you need to be able to watch it on ESPN or stream it on League Pass using our app. So what we have done is started to capture content about individual players because people don't typically follow leagues, they follow individual players. So you all have done us a great service. We have not only been visible in media in the traditional outlets like a Sports Illustrated. We've been in things like the Wall Street Journal and Fortune.

So those people who are core fans and that are with us in Sports Business Daily or Journal see us every day, but those who are beyond the traditional media for sports now get to see us, as well. So that's number one.

Number two, we've engaged our players. We had a Twitter takeover. We used social media to have our players engage not just their friends and family but their relationships all the way back to college, to their schools that they attended and the current students that are there as well as their alums across the country.

So the number one issue that we have is having more fans in the arena support the sport and support the league. So we have taken some really direct tacks at marketing. You know we started with the Watch Me Work campaign in January. We revealed that on ABC at a Cavaliers game, so the integrated approach of marketing our product early in the season along with our big brother, the NBA, where you've got a captive audience of basketball fans, was a new approach.

So we revealed early, we revealed with our big brother, and that campaign has run all the way through the season and will continue to run.

Q. You mentioned how important it is individual players, that people follow those. Are you concerned that with the new playoff format you eliminate some big names within one game? For instance, the first day of the Playoffs you had the Rookie of the Year gone, you had Tamika Catchings gone. The next round you have Tina Charles gone, Angel McCaughtry. Is that a concern that you're eliminating those players with very little time in the postseason?
LISA BORDERS: Yeah, thanks for the question. Because of things like social media, even though those players are not playing in an individual game, they still have their individual social media platforms, and I know for a fact that they are willing to use those to support not just their individual brand or their individual team but the collective league. So we recognize that when one team does well, one team does well. When the league does well, everyone does well.

The collaboration across teams is important and our players understand that. So they're willing to support one another even if they are not individually or as one franchise in a particular round of the Playoffs. So even though a Tamika Catchings or Angel McCaughtry is not playing, that does not shut down her voice or her team's voice. So that's the beauty of what we are trying to do by engaging our players, and they've been more engaged this year than they've ever been before, and it's because we asked them proactively to engage, and what most of them said to me is no one ever asked us to do that before.

And certainly they were willing to do it, and they continued to be willing to do it, even in the off-season.

Q. Wanted to ask you about now that you have gotten settled in, looking over the next couple of years, what are your biggest priorities in terms of growing the business side of the league?
LISA BORDERS: Sure. Thank you for the question. Growing the fan base is probably number one. We want to -- let me back up and say, everyone has the ability to be a fan. We don't really talk about demographics, we talk about psychographics: The committed fan, the casual fan, and the curious fan, and everyone is in one of those buckets.

I'm the person who is the committed or the core fan. I'm going to be at the game, win, lose or draw. There are those who are casual fans that would come at my invitation. They might not even be able to spell basketball, but I'm a credible source because I'm their friend, and I bring them. They have an extraordinary experience, and then they want to come back.

The curious fan is the most difficult to convert because they have no interest whatsoever and perhaps no one inviting them to a game. So our focus will primarily be on the core fan and the casual fan. They're the easiest to get inside the arena. So growing the fan base is number one.

Number two would be growing the partner base, so we recognize that there are extraordinary partners that we have today, but there are many more who could recognize, appreciate and benefit from the value proposition of these women. These women represent more than half of the population of the United States, and arguably you could extend that across the globe. So when you look at the population, you want to make sure that you as a -- whether you're consumer goods, whether you're a broadcast person, no matter who you are, that you're representing the person you're selling to or that you're viewing for, and that is becoming a better and easier sell every day.

There is a recognition, particularly by consumer goods companies, that women are not just consumers, they're not just influencers, they are, in fact, decision makers, and they want that mind share. So it's not that they don't appreciate what they have already in terms of mind share, but every time I look at a consumer goods person or organization and talk with them, they want a hundred percent of the market. That means you need to embrace the entire community, and women are making up over half of it now.

The value proposition is much easier to explain and articulate these days.

Thank you for that question.

Q. Two questions: This is your first Finals as president of this league. This is also Renee Brown's last Finals as vice president in this league. Can you just talk about those two things if you can, please?
LISA BORDERS: Sure. So this has been extraordinary for me, and part of the reason it's been extraordinary for me to serve as president is because I've had Renee Brown to learn from. You know that I had the privilege of bringing a franchise to my home city of Atlanta, so I've known Renee for 10 plus years because we started that back in 2007. But I had not had the privilege of working so intimately with her.

Her service has been invaluable to the league. She has been here since its inception. Her institutional knowledge is priceless, so Renee has done an extraordinary tour of duty. She has decided she wants to step back and step down, but she's never leaving the WNBA family. I got her cell phone number, and I know her email address. So she will stay close with us. She will help us find her successor.

The business of basketball operation continues whether I'm here, Renee is here or anybody is here, and so we want to make sure that there is a smooth transition between her departure and the incoming of a new person.

So she has been invaluable to the league, and we're not going to let her go very far.

Q. President Borders, you just mentioned about growing the fan base with the core fan, the casual fan. How about getting into new markets? Has there been any discussion about expansion at all, or where is that process?
LISA BORDERS: That's a great question, and I get that question every press conference. So absolutely we will expand at some point, but what I have consistently said is that we will have incremental and sustainable growth when every team is operationally sound and financially stable. That's when we will grow the league by adding a team.

What I do not want to do is have a spike in growth and then a crash, and so we will take our time. There's no rush. We've got 12 extraordinary teams, 144 of the best athletes in the world. Expanding too fast could change all of that dynamic. And so we will, in fact, expand, but operationally sound, financially stable, incremental, sustainable growth is what we'll be looking for before we do that.

Q. Do you feel like this Playoffs format is something -- are you guys going to study it more and potentially alter it, or do you feel like you know what you saw and it's going to be the same for next year?
LISA BORDERS: Good question. So we will study it. As I mentioned when we changed the offensive rebounding shot clock, we did a look back at three years of data, and if I remember correctly, it actually took like 6.2 seconds, right, for the ball to be re-shot. So we put in at the competition committee level the 14-second shot clock.

So we will do the same thing with this format. We study everything every year. Competition committee will review it at the Board of Governors meeting at the end of November. So we won't change it right away. What I do not believe in is trying something one time and then never trying it again because if you have one data point, you have just that, one data point. So we will study it, evaluate it, get some input from the teams that were in and frankly from the teams that were not in. We want to get a broad perspective on how the players thought it worked, how our franchises thought it worked, and then we'll come back and decide if we keep it exactly the same or do we tweak it a little bit. But I'll leave that to the competition committee.

Q. You're just finishing your first season as the WNBA president. Where do you see the league advancing five years from now?
LISA BORDERS: You know, I wish I had a crystal ball and I could tell you that. What I would say is that if everyone is -- go back to my previous answer, operationally sound and financially stable, you could see expansion happening in five years. That's a hypothetical, and I wish I had a crystal ball. I don't. I'm not one of these people that has to see everything five years out. I want to be on a constructive, progressive path, and to the extent that we are, we're happy. We're not satisfied, but we're happy.

So when I look at all the business metrics pointing in the right direction, fans increasing at 4.6 percent, double-digit viewership at 11 percent, social media 22 percent, I'm headed in the right direction. We're headed in the right direction.

We've got to do more of what we have done this season. We have to repeat this, as I said to the question earlier. One data point is one data point. Two and three data points represents a trend. So to the extent that we have a trend over a three-year period, ask me the five-year question then.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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