After impressive growth this season, how does the WNBA take the next step forward?

Very interesting point in the story that the NBA is the only league that insists that salaries come from gate revenue -- and it seems that gate revenue will always lag behind TV and sponsorship in the WNBA. If so, the salary cap is arbitrary, really.

And again, who owns the WNBA? The NBA owns 42% but there's 16% owned by that mystery investment group, and that group can change the rules.

The other thing that jumped out to me is that male sports owners identify with their male players and their male teams in ways they simply can't with WNBA or NWSL teams. That's not necessarily patriarchal, but rather just human nature. I can see a heavily idealized (and completely unreal) version of myself playing in the NBA -- "I'm a passing guard who can shoot", say, or "I could be a possession receiver" -- but that kind of identity simply isn't possible for me watching female athletes, no matter how much I admire them.

Finally, the value of something is what the market will bear, and as Dave Berri points out, rich males want to invest in male sports much more than they do in female sports, so even if the ROI is equal on both, the value of male franchises will be greater because the demand is higher.