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WNBA ALL-STAR GAME

July 15, 2007

WASHINGTON, D.C.

THE MODERATOR: Welcome, everybody, to the WNBA All-Star 2007. I would like to introduce to you the president of the WNBA, Donna Orender, and the Executive Vice President for Content of ESPN, John Skipper. We'd like to have Donna open the remarks.
DONNA ORENDER: Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us here today. I am tremendously pleased to announce that the WNBA and ESPN have extended our relationship for an additional eight years. Beginning with the 2009 season, to have ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2 televise WNBA games through 2016. I tell you, John, as you know, we've discussed, it demonstrates an incredible commitment to the WNBA, by out great partners at ESPN. Not only to the WNBA, but to women in sports in general. It's an extraordinary affirmation, we believe, of the value of our programming, and a real tribute to our athletes and the talent yet to come. We'll have up to 36 games nationally televised across ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2, a really significant commitment of programming by the worldwide leader in sports.
I'd especially like to thank our partners, specifically, John Skipper, George Bodenheimer at ESPN, and all of your colleagues who have done such a terrific job on our behalf for the last, I'm just trying to figure this out -- how many years?
JOHN SKIPPER: This is 11.
DONNA ORENDER: 11 of course. This will allow us to have a 20-year relationship. And all of those at the NBA and WNBA family, deputy commissioner Adam Silver, who has led the way on our television negotiations, Bill Koenig, and of course, Commissioner David Stern. We look forward to nine more years of successful collaboration, and we commend ESPN on your commitment to all of us here at the WNBA. And John, I gladly turn it over to you.
JOHN SKIPPER: Thank you, Donna.
We're thrilled to continue to be the WNBA's media partner. This is an increased commitment from ESPN and ABC to the WNBA. It is an independent agreement from the one we announced just recently. We are paying a rights fee, we are producing the games, and we're selling the inventory, because we believe in the future of this league.
It is also an important part of our commitment to women's sports. We're just sitting in the lounge talking about the fact that the Women's World Cup, softball is on. We had the women's World Cup Soccer a couple of days ago, we're happy to have on ABC this afternoon the All-Star Game. We are committed to being a leader in women's sports. We're also committed to being a leader in serving our fans across all platforms and consistent with other recent deals we've done, including the deal we just announced with the NBA. This is a wide-ranging grant of rights for all of our services and platforms. I think it includes over 14, or includes 14. Soon to be over 14 as we think of two, three more. And that's how we choose to serve our fans. We believe in the growth of this league.
We will work very hard with Donna and with the NBA to continue to grow the league. We're thrilled to be here today, and happy to answer any questions.

Q. Donna, could you talk about a confidence booster (inaudible).
DONNA ORENDER: As I said, it's a tremendous vote of affirmation and validation of 11 years of hard work, of the tremendous athletes that lead the way for the WNBA, the consistent growth and talent that we have, and I think the growth in our fan base. And so I think, all things being equal, it's a tremendous vote of confidence.
JOHN SKIPPER: It that's what we think.

Q. I was curious, if you feel like this new extension is really indicative of your network's support for women's sports, and how kind of the WNBA plays into that moving into the future.
JOHN SKIPPER: Well, our goal is to serve a diverse group of fans, including fans of women's sports. We've had very good success with women's college basketball tournament, which has been terrific for us, women's college softball, women's soccer. And this is an important part of that commitment. We think that, clearly, the level of competition in women's sports has done nothing but continue to get more and more -- get better and better. I think the same thing is true of this league. We're excited about what will happen in the next nine years with the competition here.

Q. For either of you or for both of you, you said this deal was independent of the NBA deal. I'm wondering if you would care to state the amount? And, Donna, is this something that's going to be a shared revenue league-wide?
JOHN SKIPPER: It's millions and millions of dollars over many years. (Laughing) And I'll let Donna, I don't know what happens to the money.
DONNA ORENDER: There is a business model in place that we'll be discussing with our families of how we will address the new millions and millions of revenue.
JOHN SKIPPER: That's as specific as we get, as you know, too.

Q. I was wondering how, this is for both of but, how you guys feel that this deal indicates the league being in good shape to kind of reach the target audience, and the target sponsors that, you know, both of you guys are trying to accurately capture and deal with?
JOHN SKIPPER: I mean, it really is, I'm going to replicate what I said before, I mean, we wouldn't be in this for nine more years if we weren't confident in the growth potential of this sport, quality of the competition. That's why we're here.

Q. Following up on those millions of dollars that might trickle down, do you think they'll trickle all the way down to some of the players, I guess, needs and wants?
DONNA ORENDER: You know, I would tell you that we're very attentive to our players' needs and wants, and the league is built on the fact that we have a great fan base and we want to put out a great product, and part of doing that is having everybody buy in.
We're happy to have a, now, very stable, very committed partner that will help us build the foundation of our business, that will indeed help our teams. And so, I think that really bodes for a good future.
JOHN SKIPPER: I'm glad you think we're stable.
DONNA ORENDER: It wasn't a psychological observation. (Laughing).

Q. I wanted to ask, Donna, how do you anticipate this effecting the upcoming CBA agreement, and also with that, how you anticipate this agreement affecting that, and if this will change at all any subsidies or anything that the NBA does give the WNBA?
DONNA ORENDER: You know, as we said before in the CBA, we continue to have ongoing discussions with the union, and we'll continue to do so throughout the summer, and anticipate that we'll come to an agreement, you know, as soon as we finish our discussions. I mean, as I said, it's an ongoing process right now. And that's really all I would comment as to our discussions.
(Pause for photo-op. Press conference resumes.)
Wow, that's a nice bit of news, hey? And you imagine I would start the State of the League, with a very positive, upbeat statement, which is we're having a great season. You know, our attendance is up, our web traffic is up, scoring is up, our free throw percentage is up, our field goal percentage is up. I know, Jada, you're going to check on that, but I already checked, it's true, all right. And we just announced a landmark television deal. So I can tell you that there's a lot of momentum behind the WNBA.
We had a goal of moving the attendance needle, and we've done that, and we will continue to do that. We've had a tremendous week in attendance where we've had over 13,000 in the last seven days in L.A. and Phoenix and Houston. And traditionally, we have a post-All-Star uptick in attendance. We expect that we'll continue to do that this year with our continued focus on our attendance, and I think servicing our fan base, so we continue that we expect that our attendance will continuing to up.
Our newly designed website, WNBA.com, has seen a 50% growth rate this year in visits.
We've got new business partners this year, four new ones in addition to the four last year, resulting in eight new WNBA focused sponsors, which is a, I would say, a very significant impact on our business because we're having activation like we've never had before.
Obviously, this All-Star Game is presented by Discover Card. Last night, for those of you who joined us at the welcome party presented by AOL, the "Be Tour" is fueled by our partnerships with the CDC and Craisins. I mean, these kind of partnerships, where these companies are generating ROI on their investments is truly a strong indication that investment in the WNBA, in women's sports will validate their business models. And we're seeing that every day now as our, really, terrific service team and sales team are engaging on fundamental levels of how to meet our sponsors' needs in delivering that with the WNBA.
What we're seeing in Washington this weekend is really tremendous, and I have to tell you, very validating. A story I've told before, but somebody went up to the box office late last week and asked for tickets, and you know, you never want to be able not to service a customer. But when the ticket seller said, I'm sorry, I have no tickets left, there were high fives all around. This game is essentially sold out. There is a secondary market for the WNBA All-Star Game on ebay and StubHub, and I can tell you that we're all very, very pleased with that.
I will also tell you the thing that really gives me the most confidence is that most discussions that I do have these days about the strength and the growth of the WNBA, is led by the talent of the players. In our 11th year, the WNBA really has sent a strong message to levels of basketball, beginning, really, with very young girls, probably 7, 8 years old. They now have a goal and a target to play this game to aspire to the WNBA. And as we know in professional sports, only a very select few make this league. We do know that the pool of athletes from which this league can choose is enormous now. We have 100 million athletes, female athletes, playing basketball around the world. That's a huge number. And we take pride in the fact that basketball is the No. 1 participatory, that is a hard word, by the way, sport for girls here in Washington.
It's been a tremendous week. Many of you have read probably in the Washington Post, I don't know where Oscar is, but Oscar, you wrote about Dr. Rice. But she was here to accept our inspiration award. And she was very inspiring in her remarks, as she spoke about her personal experiences pre-Title IX. And the division that she's seen since she was an athlete, who became a figure skater because she felt like she had no option, versus today the many sports that young girls have the opportunity to participate in.
It's been a tremendous week. We feel so proud as we do working with our NBA brethren in terms of our ability and commitment to give back to the community earlier this week along with Toyota, we opened a learning and computer center at one of the Boys & Girls Clubs. Yesterday we rededicated a court with Nike for another Boys & Girls Club. It was a great moment for all of those kids who were in attendance who then went on to have a clinic. And in addition, the "Be Tours", I think thousands of fans, I passed by and it was packed. Bigger again, bigger than ever in terms of servicing our fans.
I guess in closing, I'd like to thank all of you for being here, for your ongoing support of the WNBA. We look forward to a really terrific second half of the season. And of course, with the newly announced deal with ESPN, we do look forward with a great deal of pride and thanks and commitment, because we know that the WNBA is going to be stronger than ever over the course of the next, well, nine years, eight years.
I will be happy to take any questions.

Q. In that the Liberty is considered the flagship team of the WNBA, are you somewhat disappointed there isn't any representation at this event?
DONNA ORENDER: Hi, John, how are you? I will tell you this, on your first point, I feel like we have a lot of flagships in the WNBA. I really do. Now, spending most of my time at the Liberty games would I have liked to have seen a Liberty player here? I would, I would. But you know, it is a process by which fans vote and coaches vote. And I tell you, Carol Blazejowski has done an unbelievable job. I think she made an all-star trade. Because of that all-star trade, in a short amount of time has moved Liberty from where they are to being a playoff contender. And obviously we can see what's happening with the Silver Stars. They're leading the Western Conference. So I would give them all-star status on their player moves this year. And I would keep my eye on Loree Moore, Shameka Christon, Jessica Davenport. They have a lot of All-Stars in the pipeline.

Q. I was wondering if there's things that you have thought about doing in terms of reaching out nationally with this league, beyond the TV contract, to cities that don't have teams where you might want to create more identification with the League on a national basis.
DONNA ORENDER: You know, we do think about that, I would say, in our preseason. We do select markets that have a recognized interest in women's basketball. We're in Baton Rouge for our preseason this year, we've been in Kansas City and other markets like that. So we generally try to use that part of our season to do that kind of outage. In general, while we have 13 markets and we look to expand, it is a sport that has a national fan base, and we see that in our television ratings. So some of our top 10 markets that show the most interest are markets outside of the WNBA.
So, to your point, I think what we do see is a broader base. We will try to get out there with the kinds of clinics and grass roots programs that will be able to touch those young fans.

Q. Kind of curtailing on that just a little bit, while you do have the television contract with ESPN, a lot of the ads that you do are kind of in-house, kind of preaching to the choir, in the sense they're during the games and were the fans that you already have. Will you ever extend and maybe go back to, say, Lifetime or another channel that's out of that ESPN network to try to attract new fans?
DONNA ORENDER: We are aggressively, right now, pursuing other ways to reach the audience. We really have to know where is the audience you want to reach? So we look at heavy digital platforms as well. In addition to, we have ongoing discussions with Oxygen, with ABC Family, those kind of things. We also want to talk about local television. Our teams are doing a very nice job on a local level where we've seen local ratings really rise significantly, specifically in Los Angeles and Detroit where we've seen triple digit -- wait, that's not right. I'm going to give you the wrong percentage, but we've seen significant growth. I don't want to give you the wrong number because I can't do the math right now, in those markets in particular.
So there's television, but let's remember in this day and age, ESPN, who is really a leader in terms of 360 marketing, there is grass roots, in-arena, out-of-arena, mobile tours that we have with the "Be Tour", so there are lots of ways to reach our audience, and we'll work together to do that on all of them.

Q. Now that you've said our numbers are up, I'm very happy to say I'm from WNBA.com.
DONNA ORENDER: And Adam, you should all the time.

Q. I just wanted to say, you know, after signing this new agreement, you know, and this obvious commitment for the next eight years. You also talked about going back to the pre-Title IX days. I'm curious what you see in the years ahead. You know, looking ahead to the growth of the sport, both on the court and off, you know, and how the league will benefit from everything that happens during that time.
DONNA ORENDER: So that's a simple, one-part question, Adam?

Q. Yes.
DONNA ORENDER: And you work for who? And for how much longer? (Laughing) I feel like it's a staff meeting. "Could you tell me where we're going?" What would you like me to answer? Give me one little question here.

Q. What are your hopes as far as the growth on the court?
DONNA ORENDER: Growth on the court?

Q. Yeah. Level of play.
DONNA ORENDER: Level of play. Okay. Scoring is up, and it continues to be up. And at the same time our scoring is pushed up. John's a big basketball fan, we met actually talking basketball, but the field goal percentages are up. So it's more scoring and, you know, it's more efficient as well. So I think it really is a better scoring game. So what I would like to do is to see the level of the athleticism, the jumping ability, the skills just continue to improve, but still maintain the beauty and fundamental nature of this game. Because I do think that gives its uniqueness -- and I think for the basketball purist it has something that really attracts them.

Q. Is there anything you can tell us about expansion and where you stand on that?
DONNA ORENDER: There is something I could tell you. We've had this discussion before, so I appreciate you asking the question. We continue to talk to many markets. And obviously, it's another sign of validation that markets are really calling the WNBA because they really see the values that a team like the WNBA can bring to their community. That said, we have advanced discussions with a couple of markets, and depending on how quickly we can decide, we can come to terms, we'll determine how quickly we can expand. Some of those things you just can't rush. You've just got to go through the process.

Q. Not everywhere is an Uncasville, Connecticut, but do you see any advantages in having more markets that are strictly WNBA and not NBA? Do you think there are any advantages to that?
DONNA ORENDER: You know, people ask that a lot. I have to tell you that I see advantages in every market that we're in. I see advantages in big markets. Even when people say to us, look at all the teams you're competing against. And I'd like to say I understand we compete for an entertainment dollar, but I do think we compete for a unique entertainment dollar. We have a unique audience. So when you say you have the NFL, and you know, NHL, we specifically cater to girls, youth, women, and families, and that is unique. And so I do think we're at the top of our own ladder.
So I do think being in big markets, obviously, you have a bigger pool to pull from. But we also see in an Uncasville, that, of course, being the only game in town has its great advantages as well.
THE MODERATOR: Everyone, thank you very much for attending.
DONNA ORENDER: Before you all go, you've heard me say this before, but Dr. Sheila Johnson is here. She's been the hostess for this weekend, and the Mystics organization has done a tremendous job, and I want to thank her publicly for her efforts and her ongoing support of the WNBA. You too, Mr. Bill.

End of FastScripts

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