Gaytlsports.com

What, you might ask, is gay about the WNBA calling Atlanta home for its 14th team and newest team? Have you watched a WNBA game?

The gay angles and the significance of this story to the city’s gay and lesbian market make it No. 1 in my picks for the top local gay sports stories of 2007. There’s an obvious attraction to women’s pro basketball among lesbians, something seen anecdotally by quickly scanning the crowd at games. And having a team in Atlanta will diversify the city’s rich, but all male, roster of pro sports teams.

But more importantly, the city’s bid process invigorated gay and lesbian fans, who turned out in large numbers to volunteer for the effort, buy season tickets and build grassroots support. Bid organizers, both in the political and business worlds, recognized the importance of reaching out to gay and lesbian fans and once the league awarded the team to Atlanta, new owner Ron Terwilliger (pictured above with head coach and general manager Marynell Meadors) spoke of the importance of drawing lesbian fans.

In short, the entire process showed the significance of the city’s large gay market and indirectly, demonstrated once again that Atlanta enjoys a thriving base of gay sports fans and athletes ready to support a team that supports them.

A collection of excerpts from my coverage of the bid process brings home the point:

“We are very inclusionary and embrace everyone,” WNBA President Donna Orender said. “That is part of our core value system.”

“At some level, [the WNBA] clearly knows what their market is and that it has a large lesbian market,” said Jim Buzinski, co-founder of Outsports.com. “If you go to a WNBA game, it is obvious that there is a huge lesbian base.”

“We didn’t conduct a scientific survey, but based on my experience, I can say that there were more than a handful of lesbians at the Verizon Center. Our gaydar was going off continuously,” said Beth Schapiro, a strategic consultant and founder of the Schapiro Group.

“They can’t ignore gay fans or pretend they don’t exist. Some cities have embraced gay fans and put ads in gay publications, while others have kept things under the radar. The successful franchises seem to be reaching out to the gay community,” said Jill Barry-Kessler, a Decatur resident who owned season tickets to the Mystics when she lived in Washington, D.C.

“Obviously, it has a lesbian component to it. We are going to reach out to that audience and sell the event based on the fact that it is fun, family-oriented and should appeal to women. We are going to go and sell it on the basis of who has demonstrated an interest in the past and not play up the hard-nosed side of it,” said team owner Ron Terwilliger.

Marynell Meadors, head coach and general manager of the new Atlanta team, said the franchise can appeal to lesbian fans simply by putting a “great team on the floor.” “We want people in the stands and to be involved in our team. We want to go out and get as many fans as we can and go wherever we need to go.”

When Atlanta’s yet-to-be named WNBA team hits the floor of Philips Arena for its home opener on May 23, expect gay and lesbian fans to be out in full force, showing once again that it pays to be inclusive.

Editor’s note: We’re out of the pool and out on the field for No. 2 in my picks for the best local gay sports stories of the year. The athletes behind the Hotlanta Softball League cleaned up at the national championships last October, bringing home the gold like no other gay sports organization in the city.

When the Hotlanta Softball League (HSL) ended its 26th season in August, 10 teams packed their bags and traveled to Phoenix for the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance World Series. They were attempting to become the first Atlanta teams since 2004 to win a World Series title, competing among 185 teams from 30 cities at the event. 

HSL teams took three of the eight division titles at the World Series. On the men’s side, Atlanta winners included the Atlanta Venom, which won the A division title, and the Wet Demons, which won the D division title, in a Southern sweep of the Open Division. The Orlando Force (B) and Memphis Heat (C) won the other titles.

On the women’s side, Atlanta Riptide won the A division to claim its first title, while Gamma Lite took third place in the D division. Other Women’s Division winners included Phoenix the Other Team (B), Seattle NW Connection (C) and Seattle Lunachix (D). 

“You always have hopes of winning your division, but you never know because there are so many competitive teams,” said Rick McCracken, HSL’s open commissioner and a Venom player. “I was very surprised, excited and a bit nervous — it was everything rolled into one.”

“I had faith that we would do well,” said Nina Cole, the Riptide’s coach and a member of the Atlanta Heat that won back-to-back titles beginning in 1997. “If we played like we normally play, there shouldn’t be a reason why we wouldn’t win. But you never know from one day to the next at the World Series.”

But HSL didn’t just travel out of town for national competition. In May, the league hosted nearly 30 teams for its annual tournament, the Hotlanta Softball Challenge. In addition to six local teams, the event also attracted participants from California, Texas, New York, Florida and Alabama.

Editor’s note: No. 3 three in my picks for the best local gay sports stories in 2007 is the success of the Atlanta Rainbow Trout. Whether it’s in Paris or Atlanta, this aquatics group knows how to win. 

One title in 12 years can make a swim team a little hungry. That in mind, the Atlanta Rainbow Trout traveled to the International Gay & Lesbian Aquatics Championships in Paris last May and beat out more than two-dozen teams to take the gold medal in the small team division, which includes teams with a dozen or fewer participants. The group’s water polo team took third place to win the bronze. 

For the water polo team, a mixture of veterans and inexperienced players, reaching the medals round of the tournament marked the first time they went that deep in the IGLA tournament. Since 2002, the team has lost in the quarterfinals. 

On the swimming side, 10 Trout swimmers also captured individual medals, led by Michelle Martin as she set IGLA records in two events – the 400 Individual Medley and 200 Butterfly.

The Trout ended the year with its annual tournament, the St. Nick’s Swim Meet, which drew more than 120 swimmers from the Southeast. The day-long competition, one of the last events of the year sanctioned by United States Masters Swimming, the governing body for adult swimmers in the U.S., included the setting of several new records.

Editor’s note: Not wanting to miss out on the avalanche of year-end “best of” lists from media outlets across the globe, I’m offering my own. Here’s No. 4 in my picks of the best local gay sports stories in 2007.

Anne Barr, a longtime softball player and coach in the Hotlanta Softball League, hoped to continue her involvement with the sport, but wanted competition closer to her Decatur home. So she organized a new league, spread the word and attracted 10 teams and more than 200 women (mostly lesbians) to the Decatur Women’s Softball League last March for a 10-week schedule.

For her, the league is all about “fun and not competition.”

“Some of these women are dusting off their gloves from 20 years ago. This is liberating to play in town. We should be able to play where we live and work and not hide in the fields where the cows live,” Barr said.

The effort also had a charitable side. The league partnered with the Atlanta Lesbian Health Initiative to raise funds for the non-profit and to prompt players in the league to consider their health. On game nights, the health initiative offered information on mammograms and self-exams as part of its “Carpe Boobem” campaign. Seize the boob has to make a list somewhere for the year’s best slogan for a health campaign.

Editor’s note: The end of the year means lists. The best of, the worst of, the most quotable personalities of the year. You know, us media types don’t miss a chance to recap our prose from the prior year. Not wanting to miss out, I’m unveiling my five picks for the best local gay sports stories in 2007. Enjoy.

Getting a professional sports organization to admit it has gay fans is tough. Getting them to embrace those gay fans is nearly impossible.

But a partnership between the Atlanta Gay Sports Alliance and Atlanta Pride did just that on April 19, when their combined efforts drew more than 150 gay and lesbian fans to Turner Field for “Pride Night at the Braves.” Organizers, unsure of the response they would get, set aside 150 tickets for the event. They all sold and left last-minute participants scrambling to get an individual ticket and find the mass of gay fans in the upper decks.

The event marked the first “gay night” at the Braves since 2002, when about 500 people took part. In 2001, some 2,000 people participated to support Atlanta Games, a group that led an unsuccessful bid to land the 2004 Gay Games in Atlanta. The 2007 rendition raised about $600 for Pride and AGSA.

The Braves, for their part, didn’t say much about the event. In fact, they never did return my calls seeking comment about “Pride Night.”