Trying to ensure a bright future

They can ask him anything.

Phoenix just sold the logo on the front of its jersey to an identity theft company. Will you do the same? And the Houston Comets - the team that won the first four WNBA championships - folded this offseason. You won't be next, will you?

General manager Chris Sienko can feel the questions coming. "A lot of you are probably asking, 'Why do we find ourselves with an 11-player roster limit?' " Sienko says.

If any of the season ticket-holders are thinking this, they don't say it. They don't know about the two WNBAs Thibault, Sienko, and team president Paul Munick know. They don't know that there are some teams trying to push forward, trying to develop new ideas to keep the league alive. They don't know that there are other franchises that aren't properly funding their teams, that don't care enough to find new strategies to make money, or - as Munick says - "are going through the motions" until they miraculously make money or inevitably fail. They don't know that the Connecticut Sun are lucky enough to be one of the progressive teams.

But since the attendees don't know, they don't ask. They will ask how the players' dogs are doing, what cars they are remodeling, how well they are swinging the drivers they won at a charity golf tournament last year. So Thibault can focus on the three players he needs to cut to trim his roster to a paltry 11 - a league mandate to save money - before the season starts.

After the event, Munick wants to talk about his daughter, Lauren. He practically begged her to try to walk on the basketball team at Syracuse.

"She scored 19 points in a quarter in high school once," he says. "She could make the team if she wanted to. She refuses to. There's only so much of a push a parent can give."

Munick is also the vice president of sports and entertainment at Mohegan Sun - the Sun play their home games in the arena affixed to the casino - and he dresses the part. He used to be a suit at Madison Square Garden L.P., which owns the NBA's New York Knicks and WNBA's Liberty. He left thinking the operation was "messy," and wanted to do women's basketball right in Connecticut.

In 2002, at a time when teams were beginning to fold and many thought the league was dying after its fifth year, Munick and team CEO Mitchell Etess bought the Orlando Miracle and moved them to Uncasville, Conn. When the league started in 1997, all eight teams played in NBA cities owned by NBA owners. Munick and Etess were the first to run a WNBA franchise separate of a parent NBA franchise. More importantly, instead of treating the team like it was a failing NBA franchise, they were treating it like a separate entity.

"From the beginning, these other teams were trying to fill the arenas," he says. "We never said, 'We're gonna fill it every game.' We spent money wisely. We [gave away] the lowest amount of tickets. We found different ways of adding revenue."

Now, when the Phoenix Mercury - and former UConn star Diana Taurasi - come to Uncasville, they sell out the 10,000-seat arena. Last year, Munick said the team's revenues "were in the seven-figure range." It's the kind of low-risk, low-reward game experts think would make franchises profitable.

"They're not generating as much, but they're not losing as much, either," says CNBC sports business analyst Darren Rovell. "The reward is less, risk is less. You're not going to see a team like the Sacramento Kings in the NBA, where they're losing double their payroll. People compare this to the NBA and it's not fair."

That's why some WNBA teams that are owned by NBA teams - seven of the league's remaining 13 teams are cooperatively owned - have struggled to make cash. This results in league-wide referendums - such as the 11-player limit - that hurt every franchise.

"If they don't want it, don't take it. A lot of these teams are just going through the motions, aren't trying anything new and can't handle - or just don't want to handle - the loss," says Munick.

And that attitude filters down to the players. Sun forward Tamika Whitmore has been in the WNBA for 10 years and feels that some early franchises, like New York, didn't have confidence in the team to succeed.

"When I got there, it's like they weren't there for their players," she says. "Everybody wants this franchise and the league to succeed here. Everybody has your back."

WNBA president Donna Orender denies the claims by Munick - and other WNBA and NBA executives - that NBA-owned WNBA teams aren't being given adequate attention. Orender announced earlier in the day that the independently-owned Los Angeles Sparks reached a front-of-the-jersey sponsorship deal with Farmers Insurance.

"We're not going to comment on sentiment," says Orender. "All of our ownership groups are passionately committed to their teams."

Munick doesn't care about the other owners, really. He just wants to see a WNBA player dunk in traffic, over other players. He wants people to be wowed. He wants his daughter to be wowed. He thinks all that's coming. Soon. In the meantime, he just wants this to work.

"I don't know if you like women's basketball," he says, "but I feel like this next generation is going to need this."

After the Sun's second-to-last practice before the opener, today against the Washington Mystics, Thibault's coaching staff huddles for 20 minutes to make the final two cuts.

"[Having 11 players] hurts us in two ways. One, the quality of practices is going to go down," he says. Thibault's son, Eric, a former varsity high school player, earlier had to participate in a three-on-two drill to even up numbers. "And two, a player that could be a Development League kind of player - if we had that - they'll have nowhere to work out and play. We could turn them into something. This could be their one shot."