Former MSU basketball player Kristen Rasmussen always had high expectations for herself.
The youngest of five children, Rasmussen got pushed around as a kid, especially when she would play basketball against her older sister. Cheryl was two years older than Kristen, and even when the two were the same height for a couple of years, Cheryl still won the battles.
"I remember in middle school thinking that I was going to be the first lady in the NBA," Rasmussen said.
After four years of basketball as a starter at Okemos High School, two with her sister, Cheryl, Rasmussen achieved her goal to continue in the sport past high school.
Like many women athletes, things didn't come easy for Rasmussen.
When Rasmussen was in high school and when she started college, there were a lot of people skeptical of women's pro basketball.
In 1997, the outlook changed with the beginning of the WNBA, which altered women's professional sports. Female athletes, such as Rasmussen, were given a chance to realistically dream about playing in the pros, despite significant income gaps between themselves and male players. Those who have attempted to break the glass ceiling say sponsorship and acceptance issues in male-dominated sports, in addition to the lack of fan support, are hurdles affecting women athletes.
In 2000, Rasmussen was drafted into the WNBA and began her professional stint just two months after finishing her career at MSU. After playing one game with Utah, she was traded to Miami, where she played in 2001 and 2002. This season, she played for the Indiana Fever and continued to have success where many people thought she would not.
This season, a deal was reached in the WNBA that kept salaries capped at $622,000 per team, with players making anywhere from $30,000 to $80,000. This is in high contrast to the NBA salary cap, which is $43.84 million. The lowest drafted NBA rookie, pick No. 29, will make $669,000 this year. But the 14-team league still is expected to lose millions of dollars this year.
Salary caps and lack of opportunities in the United States force many female professional athletes, such as Rasmussen, to play overseas in the off-season, making more money in Spain than in the United States.
Rasmussen recently switched teams after her team from Madrid, Spain, could not keep her through the end of her contract to La Seu d'Urgell, a small city and women's basketball team in northwestern Spain. She said she has mixed feelings about playing overseas.
"It is nice to come overseas and be able to see different cultures, how certain people live and what interests them, but there is nothing better than playing at home," Rasmussen said.
Rasmussen said she is playing overseas not only to get better, but also because of financial reasons. But many WNBA players choose to stay in the United States despite the lack of pay, because they don't want to leave their family.
Even with the WNBA and other women's pro leagues that have formed over the past five years or so, Rasmussen said, women's and men's leagues and players still have a long way to go before they are on similar levels.
"There is a huge difference between the men's and women's game, whether it be soccer, football or basketball," Rasmussen said. "I do believe that someday, they will almost, or will be, as equal."
Infant stage
The state of women's professional sports, some say, is in its childhood.
The WNBA is similar to men's leagues, such as the short-lived American Basketball Association. The ABA existed from 1967 to 1976 for nine full seasons. During that time, the ABA fought with the NBA for players, fans and media attention.
Detroit Shock head coach Bill Laimbeer said the WNBA is working year after year to cement itself as not only a legitimate women's league, but as a professional league as well.
"The game itself has become very competitive and very athletic," former Detroit Pistons center Laimbeer said. "We feel we really made an awareness of how hard the ladies compete and really gave a boost in the arm to women's pro sports."
Although some say teams such as the Shock helped people become more aware of women's professional basketball, others say they are unsure of the future of the league.
Tracy Ellis-Ward, who is the WNBA director of basketball operations, said there are ways fans can show support of women's sports.
"Time will tell as people become more and more aware of the product that's out there and begin to support it not only by going to games, but watching on TV and supporting with sales," said Ellis-Ward, MSU's former assistant athletics director.
MSU head women's basketball coach Joanne P. McCallie has a lot of experience in her head coaching career, recent as it might be. She is in her fourth year as head coach at MSU.
McCallie remembers when players from the United States would play overseas right out of college, and no one would hear from them again. She said the WNBA has really brought the game back home.
"I don't have any doubt women's sports are here to stay," McCallie said. "I've seen it working in a variety of ways. It's special and important for young girls to see women as professional athletes."
McCallie said she's seen an increasing interest among her players who see the WNBA as a possible goal, and girls below the high school level who think joining the league would be advantageous to their careers.
As professional leagues such as the WNBA have been trying to expand by at least one team a year, they still are struggling to retain their teams from the previous years. Last month, a written statement by NBA commissioner David Stern declared that 13 of the 14 WNBA teams would return next season. The NBA used to own all the WNBA teams but has since given up that ownership to the individual NBA franchises.
Rochelle Collins, director of professional development at the NCAA, said as women's professional sports have become more prevalent, they have generated more and more interest at the college, high school and youth levels. In addition, the leagues also provide jobs for people other than just athletes. It's an entirely new market waiting to be tapped into, she said.
"You have better interest at high schools, junior highs and in the club-level sports, because they see professional athletes that are women," she said.
Tough decisions and the future
Ellis-Ward mentioned a bleak economy as a huge barrier that seems to be holding women's professional leagues and teams back.
"In this economic climate, it's hard to say how much it can grow," Ellis-Ward said. "To be realistic, if you find the right corporate sponsorship that buys into the philosophy of why women's sports needs to be out there at the professional level and why they need to support it with their dollars."
The WNBA's list of major sponsors for the past season include Coca-Cola, Nike, Verizon Wireless, Dell, Gatorade, America Online and Lady Foot Locker, although the WNBA's average attendance dropped 6 percent from last season to this season - almost 9,000 fewer fans per game.
Former USA Women's National Team coach Tony DiCicco said corporate sponsorship has been one of the bigger issues surrounding women's pro sports, because companies can't afford to take risks.
Some companies might look at the WNBA or Women's United Soccer Association (WUSA) as an incentive for women, he said, but if they aren't going to invest, they aren't going to get a return for their investment.
Some women's sports, such as the WNBA and the former WUSA, are in direct association with their brother leagues. The NBA and Major League Soccer helped their sister leagues in tough times.
This past season, the WUSA, or the Women's United Soccer Association, failed to maintain enough revenue to continue. The league was dismantled on Sept. 15.
"The business plan was flawed ,and we spent too much money," DiCicco said. "If we had started a year before we did, that would have made a difference; because of timing, we didn't reach sponsorship goals. The overall business model needs to be brought back down to a lower level. We're expecting instant success, and it doesn't work like that."
DiCicco is heading the movement to bring back WUSA next season. The eight-team WUSA was developed on the heels of the 1999 Women's World Cup and debuted about a year and half later in April 2001. The opening game that season, hosted by the Washington Freedom, drew 34,148 fans - a number that has not been matched. The league last year had average attendance drop from 8,116 to 6,957.
The WNBA, though, just had the biggest crowd in its history when the Los Angeles Sparks played the Detroit Shock in game three of the 2003 WNBA Championship. The Palace of Auburn Hills sold out that night as 22,076 fans came out to watch a winner be crowned.
"In terms of fan base, the people my age and younger is where the long-term fans will come from," Ellis-Ward said.
Ellis-Ward is a 1989 graduate of University of Missouri-Columbia, where she was captain of the basketball team and earned All-Big Eight honors in her senior season.
"Look at the commitment they put in hiring (Bill Laimbeer) midseason last year, and he really took that team to another level," Ellis-Ward said. "Worst to first - that's our slogan now in the office. Even the support they had during finals was amazing."
In addition, the 2003 WNBA champion Detroit Shock made a trip to the state Capitol, where the team was honored on Oct. 28.
The Detroit Shock isn't the only women's pro team to capture a title in the Motor City this season. The Detroit Demolition of the National Women's Football Association (NWFA) took home its second consecutive title, winning the championship back in July.
Despite the problem the league has had, some say there still is hope for the future of women's professional sports.
"It took the NBA over 50 years to average the number of fans they're having," Ellis-Ward said. "The WNBA is only 7 years old.
"Hopefully, it won't take us 50 years, because of the things that we've learned from the NBA and the other sports leagues that are out there. I think with the success of women's college basketball, as they've been getting huge numbers at their Final Four events, the numbers will increase."
As for Rasmussen, she'll return to the Indiana Fever next summer and continue her travels between Europe and the United States, playing for whatever teams want her.
To her, it doesn't matter who sponsors the league or how many people come to watch her - she just wants to play. But without those sponsors and fans, Rasmussen would be just another American female professional athlete far from home.
"Women's professional sports has come a long way, but we do have a long way to go as well," Rasmussen said. "It is great for women to have the opportunity to be able to play the sport they love for a living, in America."
J. Ryan Mulcrone can be reached at mulcron3@msu.edu.
