The WNBA - We Got Next (Unless Giant Animatronic Dinosaurs are Booked in our Home Arena)

Today's latest story, care of the Washington Post as to why the WNBA, as a league, is only slightly more relevant than the latest reincarnation of women's professional soccer, and still remains less relevant than the MLB, NFL, NHL, NBA, PGA, PBA (Professional Bowling Tour for those who don't know), NASCAR, IndyCar, NHRA, the professional Bass Fishing Tournament, the NCAA, and the Montgomery County Bar Association Summer Softball League, among other competitive sports ventures:
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Dinosaurs May Force Mystics Out of Verizon

Because of a scheduling conflict at Verizon Center, which will be hosting a BBC production called "Walking With Dinosaurs," if the Mystics make the playoffs they will play their first round series at Comcast Center in College Park.

This of course assumes that the Mystics, who sit in fifth place and out of the playoff picture in the WNBA's Eastern Conference, make the playoffs. Washington has two games remaining, home on Saturday against Atlanta and away at New York on Sunday.

Here's what Chief Operating Officer Greg Bibb had to say in a news release yesterday.

"While it is unfortunate we will not be able to play a first round game at our home arena, Verizon Center, we are fortunate to have a terrific facility located in close proximity in the Comcast Center," Bibb said. "I appreciate the support and cooperation of the University of Maryland athletic department in providing their facility and look forward to the potential homecoming of sorts for former Terrapins and current Mystics stars Crystal Langhorne and Marissa Coleman."

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REACT:

So let me get this straight... in the unlikely event that you hurdle two teams and make the playoffs, you won't be able to play in your home arena because of an animatronic dinosaurs show billed as follows:

"The arena is laid out with a proscenium stage at one end and the entire arena floor is our performing surface. Because the dinosaurs are the size they were in real life, the only venues large enough to accommodate them are arenas. We use both live and recorded video to enhance the scenes in the show; and the cinematic scope, dramatic lighting and symphonic sound used in the performance bring the creatures into three-dimensional reality as they walk around the arena floor. A team of master puppeteers operates each of the Dinosaurs via the use of new and special technologies invented just to bring them to life. The sights, sounds and subtleties of movement will make you feel that you are looking at real dinosaurs - alive and spontaneous to everything, even the audience. During the show, you cannot actually touch the Dinosaurs, but don’t worry, the experience will be 'real' and 'live.' Our producer Carmen Pavlovic says, 'It is the closest you’ll ever get to experiencing what it was like when they walked and ruled the earth.'"

Lest we forget, this is a league that in its 13-year history, has already had five teams fold and two teams relocate. A league where the highlight of its most recent all star game was having all the other players on the floor clear the paint and giving a player known for her ability to... wait for it... DUNK... two chances to dunk a basketball. She needed the second chance after she clanged it off the rim in her first attempt. Notably, that first attempt is not included in this video. All those uncontested layups made her dunking skills rusty.

Come to think about it, that dinosaur show doesn't look half bad.