Is Danica-mania for real?

I couldn’t help but think of the WNBA last weekend as Danica Patrick, perpetually dressed in her racing gear, became racing’s It Girl for her record-breaking performance at the Indianapolis 500.With her obvious knowledge of racing, her good looks and husky voice, her self-possession before a frenzied media, and her 4th place finish on Sunday, Patrick seems poised to take the IndyCar Series and racing fans by storm. Certainly it helped that her practice times were so impressive, as she nearly became the first woman to win the pole, and that her team is run and owned by some pretty heavy hitters (the Rahal Letterman team). Patrick seems ready to take a place among race car drivers that women competitors of the past, Janet Guthrie and Lyn St. James, were begrudged, no matter their merit.

I’m skeptical, though, that Danica-mania will last long. The media may not tire of her story, but her fellow competitors are already dissing her and, of course, fans are fickle.

Just ask Lisa Leslie or Sheryl Swoopes. Both likely have generated more press than any other female basketball players in history — and both deserve that attention and more, given their considerable gifts on the court and off. And when the WNBA’s first eight teams kicked off their inaugural season in the summer of 1997 to much hoopla (excuse the pun), predictions abounded about the league’s impending success. That first season? Yes, big success — over 50 million fans tuned in and more than 1 million attended WNBA games that summer. But very quickly the blush left this rose — every year we read stories about how the women’s league is hemorrhaging fans and interest. The league-wide average attendance is down to 8,300 in 2004, and losing ground, and TV viewership has been stagnant for some time. And the WNBA still has not made a profit — WNBA prez Val Ackerman said last year that she hoped a profit could be squeezed from the league by 2007.

Good luck.

Don’t misunderstand – I dig the WNBA. A few of the teams, such as the L.A. Sparks and the Sacramento Monarchs, are fun to watch. Mostly, I enjoy particular players – like Leslie, Chamique Holdsclaw (who I met last summer), Tamika Catchings, Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi, and probably 20 others who are Wow! on the court (especially when you see them courtside). That the league offers a good product, considering what they’re up against, is just not enough, though. Why? Precisely because of what they’re up against.

The following factor doesn’t have much to do with Danica Patrick: The fact is that female athletes in all but the most obscure and extreme sports (i.e. 100-mile marathons) aren’t yet able to compete with the strength and speed of men in head-to-head competition. I’m one who believes one day they will, especially in terms of speed; anyone who watches track events closely can see the amazing rate at which women sprinters are gaining on men. But in basketball? Ahh … no. No real dunking; that first-step quickness is not there; and, pound-for-pound, even the best female players would struggle against third-stringers from the NBA. More women might be trying to compete against men head-to-head (think Michelle Wie), but at this point women still aren’t making the cut.

There are two additional factors to consider in understanding where women athletes currently stand in the world of sports. Many sports fans see women’s sports and female athletes not only as relatively inferior products vis-à-vis head-to-head competition with men, but there’s also a political aspect to the presentation of some women’s sports that strikes fans as unsavory. Look, again, at the WNBA. I may not be a big fan of Doug Collins or Bill Walton as NBA commentators, but when I watch a game I can trust I’ll get their unvarnished take on whatever game their calling. When I watch a WNBA game, though, the play-by-play caller and the color commentator, as well as courtside reporters and anyone they interview, all feel compelled to act as WNBA/women’s sports boosters. Almost nothing said is “negative,” lest viewers think they’re disparaging the women involved and, by extension, the product. There’s something insufferably PC about the kid-glove treatment here. As if women can’t handle a little keen observation or incisive suggestions. As if whatever criticism is leveled at administrative, coaching and player decisions will upend the entire enterprise once and for all. And fans can smell this a mile away.

We’ve seen this in its mildest form with the coverage of Michelle Wie and her quixotic attempts to make the cut at a PGA Tour event. For example, male players’ speaking out against her free-lunch exemptions has been implicated as transgressions of politesse and, worse, sexism. Fortunately, Wie’s continued inability to make the PGA grade has resulted in more balanced coverage: Whatever criticism she gets lately has seemed warranted. One hopes Danica Patrick can steer clear of PC coverage. And if she continues to race well, and sometimes to win, she certainly could.

One speed bump she has no chance of overcoming, though, is people’s continued biological and sociological imperatives. In less fancy language? In general, human beings, and maybe sports fans in particular, just don’t respect women as much as they do men. Just as study after study has shown that people trust and respect tall men more than short men, research into human interaction illustrates that people are inclined to give men the edge in terms of handing over attention, respect, power and rewards. And it doesn’t even matter whether men deserve it. Men involved in sports can be corrupt and contemptible cheats who bastardize the true intentions of sports, and women can play games “as they were meant to be played” (as even John Wooden concedes about women’s basketball). No matter. Life’s not fair, and no one ever said it was. History and tradition weigh heavily against women succeeding on par with men, but so does evolutionary psychology. To wit, women might be taking up the sport of boxing in droves, and a number of them are quite good – but women’s boxing isn’t exactly lighting a fire under fans. In fact, most fans still express disgust and dismay with the notion of women beating each other to pulp. And why not? A contestant might raise her gloves in victory, feeling some personal satisfaction after KOing her opponent, but what does such a win signal in the larger culture? Nothing that would indicate her reproductive capacity, nor her potential suitability as a mate or tribal leader. What she has done, though, is to trespass into biological and traditional male terrain – and she’s more likely to suffer the backlash of ostracism than to reap the rewards usually reserved for men.

Such a backlash is what Janet Guthrie struggled against, which she details in her recently released memoir “Janet Guthrie: A Life at Full Throttle.” Can Danica Patrick somehow maneuver past these pitfalls?

Again, and with all sincerity, good luck.