How can the WNBA improve? Player salaries aren't only thing it needs to fix

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6 days ago

INDIANAPOLIS — WNBA players want to get paid, that much is obvious after an All-Star weekend that became as much about the ongoing contract negotiations as the game itself.
The players are looking for higher salaries and better revenue sharing, and rightfully so. They see very little of the money that's pouring into the WNBA now from expansion fees, media rights and sponsors.
Those aren't the only issues on the table, however. Here are four other problems that must be addressed for the WNBA to continue to thrive:
Officiating
Complaining about officiating is as much a part of sports as uniforms and scoreboards. In this case, however, the critics have a point.
The W is, was and always will be a physical league. But the refs haven't kept pace with the players' speed and the strength, and it's resulted in too many games getting out of control. They've also missed calls and made the wrong ones.
And for the love of God, turn reviews over to a replay center — like in the NBA. The calls and consultations this season have felt excruciatingly long and disrupted the flows of games.
'Our game is growing … and I feel like as the game grows, we need the officiating to grow with us,' Las Vegas Aces center A'ja Wilson said. 'Sometimes that takes time, and I know they're human, they're going to make mistakes. But I think at some point we're going to have to start meeting each other at the middle.
'I mean, James Harden created a whole other look of a step back, but refs understood that and was like, `OK, this is how the game is played. It's legal. Let's try to work from there,'' Wilson said. 'We just got continue to grow together. We are getting really, really, really good at what we do, so we need them to be the same.'
WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert didn't throw the refs under the bus. But she acknowledged hearing the complaints and said the league is actively working to make officiating better.
'Every play is reviewed. We spend hours and hours and hours (doing that). We use that then to follow up with officials (and) training,' she said.
'We're working hard to make sure we're putting the best product out on the court and our officiating has to follow that.'
Schedule
The Minnesota Lynx's schedule before the All-Star Game was a nightmare. Eleven games between June 24 and July 16, including a stretch with five games in eight days. Two sets of back-to-backs during the stretch. Four noon starts in the five games between July 9 and 16.
'When we received the schedule, we thought it was about as illogical as you can get,' Minnesota coach Cheryl Reeve said. 'Every team has stretches for sure, but this one's illogical.'
And there's more! The Golden State Valkyries begin the second half of the season with four games in seven days. The New York Liberty will play five games in eight days between July 25 and Aug. 1. The Dallas Wings have games on July 25, July 27 and July 28. You get the picture.
'The scheduling is always a Rubik's cube,' Engelbert said.
But the W is also doing this to itself.
The league will play 44 games this season, up from 40, yet Engelbert sounds reluctant to stray from the traditional mid-May to mid-October timeframe except in years when there are international competitions.
'I don't think there's much you can do on the front end. You can a little on the back end,' she said. 'How much college football Saturdays do you want to go into? … Then the NBA would be starting. We generally haven't overlapped with them.'
The league has grown to the point that it needs to prioritize itself rather than worrying about other sports. Otherwise, it's going to drive its players into the ground.
Roster expansion
Making a WNBA roster can often feel like basketball's version of The Hunger Games.
Even with the addition of the expansion Golden State Valkyries, there are only 156 roster spots available in the league. It's often even less, though, because many teams will only keep 11 players on their rosters due to the salary cap.
Just three months after being drafted, second-round picks Madison Scott, Shyanne Sellers and Dalayah Daniels are out of the league. Alissa Pili, a first-round pick last year, was cut by the Minnesota Lynx earlier this month.
These thin rosters are tough on teams, too. There was a point last month when the Dallas Wings had just eight players available. Teams were using hardship contracts the first week of the season.
Though Engelbert has said in the past she'd rather increase the number of players in the league through expansion, she now sounds more open to adding roster spots.
'That is certainly on the list," she said.
Transparency
This isn't necessarily part of the CBA negotiations, but it needs addressing. Even if the WNBA isn't trying to hide anything, its caginess about fines and end-of-game officiating makes it look as if it is.
The major men's professional leagues have realized transparency makes the game better. The NBA releases an assessment of all officiating calls over the last two minutes of any game where the lead is three points or less. The NFL, which takes paranoia to an art form, discloses how much players are fined and reasons for suspensions.
They're small things, but they serve to create trust in the leagues and the people running them. Given the fan response to the players' contract demands during All-Star weekend, the WNBA can use any goodwill it can get.This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: WNBA schedule, roster sizes and officiating also need to be addressed