Nearly 30 years have passed, but Rebecca Lobo can still recall the exciting buildup to the WNBA’s inaugural season in 1997.
The NBA promoted the women’s league with the tagline “We got next.” WNBA commercials aired during NBA playoff games. The buzz and intrigue were palpable.
When Lobo touched down in Los Angeles for the league’s first game between the Sparks and Liberty, she remembers looking out the bus window and seeing her and Lisa Leslie’s smiling faces on a massive billboard.
“I don’t think any of us in that moment were sort of looking outward in terms of, what is this league going to be in 15 years, 20 years, 30 years, that sort of a thing,” Lobo told The Post. “The climate at that time of professional women’s basketball was, you know, professional leagues had started for women, and then they had folded. And so we were just sort of immersed in … how thankful we were, first of all that there was a league, that it was backed by the NBA. And then, like, what can we do to continue to keep this league growing?”
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
