Adam Zagoria wrote a state of the league article yesterday. In it, he included a key quote from David Stern explaining the NBA's interest in the W.

"The investment in developing a sport that develops new basketball fans makes an enormous amount of sense," Stern said earlier this year. "This is a huge competitive advantage for us. People don't understand, but it is a marketing expense that couldn't be duplicated at five times what NBA owners have invested."

What Stern means is that a WNBA fan is more likely to go to an NBA game than someone who's not a basketball fan at all. And by having the WNBA season run from late May to early September, it keeps attention on pro basketball in the NBA's offseason and helps fill arenas.