Jere Longman on the WUSA's marketing mistakes. Some market researchers have suggested that the league focused its advertising on the wrong fans.

"Perhaps the most troubling discovery in [the] research was that girls - the W.U.S.A.'s core audience - found the league to be "uncool" once they reached middle school. They became "somewhat embarrassed" to consider themselves fans or to wear league merchandise, he said. When they watched games on television, they tended to watch them alone instead of with friends."

The WNBA doesn't have quite the same audience, but there are still some lessons to be learned here.