The Pulse Newsletter 📣 | This is The Athletic’s daily sports newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Pulse directly in your inbox.Good morning! Smash all your shots today. Coming up:
Questions: It’s a grab-bag dayRather than try to shoehorn today’s mailbag questions into one category — “women’s sports,” broadly, is tempting, but feels off — I’ll just concede: It’s a miscellaneous question day! Let’s get to it:Can anyone in the WNBA dunk, and if so, do they? BTW I’m a WNBA fan. — Alan B., Fort Wayne, Ind.💬 Annie Costabile: Yes! There have been players in the WNBA to dunk, starting with Lisa Leslie. Candace Parker was one, Brittney Griner is another. Dominique Malonga has dunked in the 3×3 league Unrivaled. There’s a video circulating on social media of her dunking in a Storm practice, so it seems like it’s only a matter of time before she does in a game.💬 Sabreena Merchant: Washington Mystics forward Kiki Iriafen has dunked in practice and has said that now she’s past her rookie year jitters, she’s looking forward to dunking in-game.Can you do a piece on the financial support the NBA gives to the WNBA? Just to clear up any misconceptions. — Jack FG, Elmira, N.Y.💬 Merchant: When the WNBA inaugurated in 1997, it was completely owned by the NBA. That ended in 2002, when the league returned control of the teams to the individual franchises; now, the NBA owns 42 percent of the WNBA. That manifests itself in some shared personnel at the league level, including legal teams and operations executives. They also have a combined media rights package, a shared office space in Manhattan and some of the same national sponsorships and marketing deals.There are individual WNBA teams that are under the same ownership as the NBA teams in their city. They share tons of resources, including arenas and practice facilities.Asli Pelit’s recent article about the NWSL being one of the best values for fans got me thinking why The Athletic hasn’t done a deep dive recently on the cost of fan experiences across the major leagues in the country. Affordability is always a concern, but especially when I’m looking at gas prices and seriously considering a Prius. So … what’s the best fan deal for a family of four? — Amos F., Sioux Falls, N.D.
