Up In The Air

Houston's Cynthia Cooper, the league's surprise best player, is typical of many mature players. After winning two national championships at the University of Southern California, she spent the next 10 seasons in Spain and Italy, unable to play pro ball in her home country. ""I would score 60 points in a game,'' she says, ""and come home to a telephone.'' Now she can be near her mother, who is undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer, a cause the league has rallied around. ""This is a women's league, and we're specifically doing something for women.''

The women have made a virtue of their underdog scrappiness. But their lives can be difficult and, by professional sports standards, underrewarded. Though the league spent lavishly on a $15 million marketing campaign, it cut costs on salaries. Pay for top stars for the 28-game season is set at $50,000 (since all teams are owned jointly, there are no bidding wars); lesser players make as little as $10,000. By league rule, the WNBA teams fly commercial airlines, coach. In the Houston practice gym, the Comets don't even have their own names on their cubicles. Sheryl Swoopes uses one marked Charles Barkley.

The ABL, by comparison, offers better money, with salaries reaching $125,000 for a 40-game season. By most accounts, it offers a better game (chart), including eight of 12 Olympic Dream Teamers. But as a machine for manufacturing celebrity, the ABL can't compete. A Nike executive who asked not to be identified said that the company steers players toward the WNBA. ""Of course no one is forcing the players, but they are encouraged to go the route where there is the most visibility. The ABL just doesn't have the type of exposure that sells product, and that's the business we're in--selling product.'' The company, which sponsors players in both leagues, denies that it nudges them one way or the other.

A WNBA star like Swoopes can have her own Nike shoe, her own basketball, sports bra, ankle support, action figure, videotape and phone card, plus endorsement deals with Dr Pepper and Discover card. She also has a ""personal-services contract'' with the WNBA, for promotional appearances, worth well more than her hardwood salary--a package worth about $1 million. Men's endorsements still dwarf women's by ""about 10 to 1,'' says Swoopes's agent, Joel Bell, who also represents NBA star Jerry Stackhouse. ""But that's a lot better than three years ago, when it was 10 to zero.''

In the Houston locker room, Van Chancellor--the league's only male head coach--is trying to steer his players around these worldly distractions. ""Don't you get all torn up about your endorsements, about your playing time, about your money, about your publicity,'' he preaches, his thick Mississippi drawl lubricating the jock-talk sanctimony. ""Keep thinking, "Hey, I'm playing for every little girl in the world.' And if she wants my signature, I'll have time to say, "How're you doing, sister? I'm glad you came out to watch us play'.''

It is part pep talk, part seduction. Later that afternoon, the team is holding a clinic for underprivileged kids from Girls Inc. ""Who can stay and help?'' Away from the sponsors, away from questions about whether a league can make it without slam-dunking thrills, 50 girls file into the Westside Tennis Club later that afternoon. Backup forward Yolanda Moore coaches them in dribbling, and also in goals and discipline. And the other business of the WNBA, perhaps the more important business, extends its reach into the Houston afternoon, and beyond. If this is what's next, they got it.