Vancouver needs to get on the WNBA train

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A professional women’s soccer team. A professional women’s hockey team.

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Vancouver, finally, is jumping on the global movement that is the growth of elite women’s sport.

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But hosting the WNBA for more than just a one-off game, as Rogers Arena did Friday for the Seattle Storm vs. the Atlanta Dream, remains very much a dream.

Toronto is getting an expansion team, the Swift, starting next summer. There are no plans for now for future expansion, NBA Canada’s Cheryl Sebastian told Postmedia on Friday.

No Vancouver on the radar, but there’s no denying the momentum the WNBA and women’s pro sports in general is seeing in Canada.

The WNBA has tangible evidence of this, Sebastian said.

“Viewership (in Canada) is up,” she said. Subscriptions to the WNBA’s League Pass service, which offers access to every game on the schedule, is up too.

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“We’re the only country with our own social media channels,” she added. They wouldn’t set that up without believing there was an audience to hit.

There are lifelong fans to be made, Sebastian said. They know that connecting fans for the first time has a long-lasting effect.

Among the promotions they put together during the visit this week was painting WNBA-distance three-point lines on local courts. Five outdoor courts at parks around Vancouver — at Stanley Park, Hastings Community Park, Gaston Park, Kingcrest Park and Queen Elizabeth Park — are getting the new lines painted on their courts.

The idea, Sebastian explained, is to keep their league front-of-mind even after the WNBA carnival leaves town.

“It provides the opportunity to get closer to the game,” she said of legacies like this initiative, which they are calling “Line It Up.”

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Getting tied into the grassroots, making pro women’s sport be more than just an idea, to feel truly real, will only snowball everything.

In North America, basketball has been at the forefront of this. The WNBA’s viewership numbers are exploding. Caitlin Clark signed a $28-million, eight-year endorsement deal with Nike. That’s another example of how real this has all become.

The key is making it all feel unique, its own thing. The WNBA has always played through the summer. The games are far more accessible for average fans, even in their home markets.

The uniqueness extends to the two extant Canadian women’s pro leagues, the PWHL and the Northern Super League, the women’s league which launched this summer in Canada with six teams across the country.

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Growing up in Cranbrook, Rylind MacKinnon didn’t have anything to look to beyond collegiate hockey and women’s hockey at the Olympics. She got to play at the University of B.C., captaining the Thunderbirds for two years.

Now she is being paid to play in the PWHL, last season with the Toronto Sceptres, this season with the Boston Fleet.

The PWHL vibe is very much its own thing, one that sets it apart.

“In Toronto, they had made a poster board, for every person on the team, with like a nickname and a catchphrase, which they hung up in the arena,” she said. “The kids made you friendship bracelets and stuff like that. It’s a little bit of a different dynamic.”

The Vancouver Rise are chasing their own dynamic by playing at Swangard Stadium, which by its more intimate nature brings fans and players closer together.

That is the real key — giving fans a real chance to feel like they are in the same boat as the stars they’re cheering for. It has worked for the WNBA elsewhere.

Surely, it would work for the WNBA here. It’s time for someone to step up and make a team happen.

pjohnston@postmedia.com

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