The WNBA is Proof: Two Professional Women's Hockey Leagues Are Needed in North America
One is good, two is better to grow the game and develop athletes
The WNBA is proof, one professional women’s hockey league is not ideal. By all accounts, the WNBA is a smashing success. Filled with the best players in the world and paying liveable wages in a professional environment, the league has a strong fan base and continues to grow. Without a second league in North America, however, many top draft picks, some of the world’s best young prospects, never make the league. With that, as a league, the WNBA is a success, but the growth potential of women’s basketball is left untapped.
You might say, that’s ok, the best are there. But that isn’t the truth. With proper time to develop, many of those young prospects could certainly displace players within the WNBA. Some do after going to Europe, while others leave the sport prematurely.
In men’s professional hockey, it’s a service provided to the NHL by the American Hockey League and East Coast Hockey League. In the NBA, it’s the G-League. NHL leaders including Leon Draisaitl, David Pastrnak, Mikko Rantanan, Erik Karlsson all spent time in the AHL. Imagine if any of these players were released with nowhere to go.
As Alex Azzi pointed out for NBC’s On Her Turf, “Herein lies the sad reality of the WNBA Draft. Each year, 36 players hear their name called out in what is often the culmination of a lifelong goal. But many of these players – whether they know it in that moment or not – still face long odds when it comes to whether they’ll actually play in the WNBA.”
According to Azzi, over the last five years, an average of 13 of 36 players selected from each draft are waived prior to the first game of the season, and that number grows in the opening weeks of the year. Azzi also points to the fact that roughly half of each draft class don’t play more than a single season in the WNBA.
In a league selecting only 36 players, these are elite, professional calibre athletes.
When looking at “either/or” claims, and assertions that a single professional women’s hockey league in North America is the only way, the WNBA should be used as a cautionary tale. Regardless of what anyone asserts, either the Premier Hockey Federation (PHF) or the league formed by the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association (PWHPA) will emerge as the top league in North America. One of these leagues will feature better salaries and the majority of the world’s top players. The other will serve an equally important purpose. Whichever league comes out with less talent and money will continue to provide women with the opportunity to play professional hockey, will continue to grow the game in additional markets, and will provide a space for players to develop, and older veterans to prolong their careers. If nothing else, two leagues also provide athletes with choice, similar to how some NHL players eventually opt to return to Europe for family or personal reasons.
Imagine a single six-team professional women’s hockey league. Within that league are the best 120 players in the world; the likes of Marie-Philip Poulin and Hilary Knight. If each of those teams participated in a draft choosing 36 players, six players per year per team would need to leave this league, or those rookies will be cut. Or, in an ideal situation, they could move to or be assigned to another North American league.
To say one league is enough is not enough. In men’s hockey, it’s acceptable to see dozens of leagues paying liveable wages across the globe. It’s the NHL, AHL, ECHL, SHL, Liiga, KHL, National League (Switzerland), DEL, Czechia, Slovak and others. In women’s hockey, there are leagues in each of these nations, but not that allow women to be hockey players alone.
To truly grow the game, options must be available. The WNBA has found commercial success and public popularity, and can certainly expand to open a few doors, but there is also viable professional women’s basketball in other nations. For women in hockey, those options remain limited.
Will there be a league where all or most of the Canadian and USA national team members play? Yes. Does that mean this league should kill any other league? No. Because if it does, the long-term growth of women’s professional hockey will be hampered. Seeing as many women as possible playing professional hockey, being paid liveable, and hopefully, someday lavish salaries is the goal.
Expansion can solve some of the WNBA’s issues. The league, which originated in 1997 with eight teams now has 12. Were the league to add four more franchises, that would create only 48 additional roster sports. It ultimately doesn’t solve the needs of women in basketball, only the needs of the WNBA, temporarily. As USA Today’s Mike Sykes wrote about the annual shedding of talent from the WNBA, “it’s not that these players are bad or that they don’t have the ability to stick in the WNBA — it’s just that there isn’t enough space for teams to hold on to them.”
Saying two women’s professional hockey leagues cannot survive is a statement veiled in sexism and misogyny. North America currently supports multiple men’s leagues featuring more than 100 teams.
Two leagues of equal talent will not exist in the women’s professional game, similar to the men’s game, but a tiered system makes sense. When a second league is founded, there will undoubtedly be movement between those tiers. For example, if the PWHPA’s league does become the choice for the best in the world, to say the likes of Kennedy Marchment, Mikyla Grant-Mentis, or Allie Thunstrom couldn’t play in that league, would be presumptive. Similarly, without two leagues, upcoming stars, even those who have nationally represented Canada and the USA at the U18 level, could have nowhere to go following university.
Conversely, when the WNBA was founded in 1997, there was a second women’s league, the American Basketball League (ABL), but it ceased operations in 1999. The WNBA benefitted from a partnership with the NBA, much like rumoured support from NHL teams will benefit the PWHPA. The PHF appears well established enough to avoid the fate of the ABL, but the PWHPA could also benefit from collaborating toward mutual goals with the PHF to ensure the longevity of both.
One league is good, and as the WNBA has proved, can survive and thrive. But two leagues are better, ensuring the women’s game itself survives and thrives.
lolol NO one watches women's basketball, not even women. Not even transwomen lol it's a joke and so are you dude