The Pimping of Candace Parker

(Photo by Jeff Gross/Getty Images)

Los Angeles Sparks forward Candace Parker is a stunning athlete, both in terms of skill and beauty.  She is also as popular as a WNBA star can be in this country.  The rap supergroup Wu-Tang Clan even referenced her on their recent album.

"You're a starter, like Candace Parker...GPA 4.0 and the game's complete / Skin tone buttercream, all defensive-team / Dreamgirl like Jennifer Hudson, you're my queen." --"Starter" by the Wu-Tang Clan

And the recent 23 March issue of ESPN the Magazine features a cover story features (a very pregnant) Candace Parker and her marketing role for both the WNBA in particular, and women's sports in general. 

It is part of ESPNtM's tribute to Women's History Month.  The issue includes statistics on participation rates among female athletes, as well as the struggles of female athletes with concussions.

Here is one can learn from the article—Candace is wholesome; she is beautiful; she demands a lot from herself.  What else?  She is normal.  And...she is wholesome.  And...she is...beautiful.  Oh, and she is not crass.  And...and...married to Shelden Williams...

The entire article came across as a desperate attempt to sell Candace Parker to male-dominated industry.  The problem is the term desperate as there appeared to be a lot of repetition in the article of points that most of us already knew—Candace is talented, beautiful, and down-to-earth.

But this desperation speaks to a larger problem with the selling of "female" sports.

While Title IX is not exclusively focused on sports, nor is it solely for the benefit of women (see Western Kentucky's promotion to FBS football), this amendment has attempted to create equal opportunities—or at least equal access—for people regardless of gender. 

This important amendment focuses primarily on institutions or education program "that received Federal financial assistance."  In the case of college athletics, it ensure that roughly the same number of athletic scholarship went to both male and female athletes.

Based on the ESPN statistics, it is safe to assume that Title IX has dramatically increased female participation in athletics. 

And in some schools around the country, women's sports teams rival in popularity at least the second most popular male sport—women's basketball at Connecticut, Old Dominion or Tennessee; women's soccer in Virginia or North Carolina; softball at Arizona and UCLA; women's volleyball at Hawai'i.

What has been difficult to overcome are the hurdles to successfully creating and marketing professional leagues for women in the United States.  The Candace Parker article notes what many sports fans already know—the WNBA often plays in front half-filled (or half-empty) arenas.

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