commissioners both WNBA/NBA since one is on life support from the other. They've got 12 struggling, money losing franchises who have demonstrated before that they are poor at business management. So when you have the opportunity of a lifetime you as the commissioners need to ride herd and make sure things are handled. It is not acceptable to stand back and say "it's up to the teams".
I know from my time in upper management over the years if I so badly mishandled something so basic as a back up plan for production on something that is a game changer for the company I would be told to clean my desk immediately and I would deserve it. I would do the same if I were CEO etc. This isn't baseball and you don't get 3 strikes. If I'm running the company I'm not interested in hearing "oophs" while millions of dollars go passing us by and we now get to deal with millions of pissed off people around the world who I now get to go face and try to tell them why they should love what we're doing and part with their money.
The CC jersey was selling for $130.00. Given the millions of fans around the world, she has a huge international fan base, it is likely this cost the Fever, and the league coffers if they get a split, many millions of dollars. It's also not like they weren't forewarned or didn't have empirical data to predict demand. When drafted by the Fever her jersey likewise sold out in minutes. Her popularity has only increased since then and marketing people could have given the Fever/WNBA/NBA all of the metrics necessary about social media numbers etc. to be able to predict demand and schedule production. Even a month or so ago her jersey was the #1 jersey in sales for any athlete in the entire world for any sport including soccer and the NFL. To not have at least several days of supply rather than, according to some accounts less than 10 minutes, is gross incompetence and mismanagement.
= new reply since forum marked as read