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July 18, 2005

Storm 78, Sparks 70

I know this is a belated post (traveling - whatcha gonna do?), but the Storm beat the Sparks, 78 to 70, Saturday night at Staples Center.

One of the things I like about the Storm is the way Key Arena "feels" when the team takes the court. Storm fans tend to be pretty enthusiastic, so 6,500 of us can sound like 17,000 when we're in the middle of a great game. So this prompted me to wonder: what's it like for other teams/fans/arenas? Is the Storm experience a WNBA thing, or a Seattle thing? Or what?

And hence, my trip to LA.

A few notes from the trip:

• First, Staples Center is a big facility. Key Arena has a 100 and a 200 level; Staples goes up to 300. This makes sense, owing to the fact that the LA metro area has - what? 20 million people? - compared to the 1.2-million-ish we have in Seattle. However, it also made the place feel a little cavernous. (Our seats, however, were excellent.)
• Even though the potential pool of Los Angeles WNBA fans is 15x that of Seattle, the attendance for the Sparks seemed to be about the same of a regular Storm game. This could mean that a) WNBA attracts about 6,500 folks per game, regardless of market (I'd have to check numbers for the Sun, the Lynx, and other teams to know), or b) Seattle fans are, indeed, more enthusiastic, and therefore more of us show up per capita.
• As a fan, you get used to certain "house" conventions about how to behave at a basketball game. For example, at the beginning of each half, Storm fans stay standing until we make our first basket. Sometimes this is 10 seconds; sometimes it is 2 minutes. Going to a new arena and watching a new team do "their" thing is kind of cool, but also kind of unnerving. Sparks people have a "shake your keys!" thing they do when the opponents go for free throws - the Jumbotron shows a guy in a jailhouse outfit, shaking these bad, fake cardboard keys at the screen. Fans love it.
• The audience composition - the types of people who go to the games - seemed to be roughly similar. Again, I'm curious as to what this means to the league's overall demographics and marketing.
• Thirteen-year-old girls in Los Angeles love Lisa Leslie.

Finally, my favorite "LA Moment" came about midway through the second half. Betty had just made a three-point shot, and I stood up, cheering. This large black woman was walking in the aisle nearby, stopped, turned me to me and, in a very pissed-off voice, demanded, "Are you cheering for the Storm?!?"

I paused for a second (am I gonna get my ass kicked?), but went with it.

"Yeah!"

(I mean, it was kind of hard to deny, given that I was wearing a big-ass "SEATTLE STORM" t-shirt.)

The woman broke into a huge smile and said, "Right on!" and gave me a high five. So I said, "Are you from Seattle?"

"No," she said. And wandered off.

My friend Chris Norris, watching the whole exchange, just started cracking up. "Welcome to Los Angeles."

Posted by Gavin Shearer at July 18, 2005 8:02 PM. Posted to Seattle Storm.

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Posted by: marnie at July 19, 2005 9:40 AM

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