We got the chance to speak with Michael Alter, the principal owner of the Chicago Sky, the morning after the Sky's first WNBA game this season. Alter spoke about the WNBA's sharp rise in popularity, how his team is tasked with managing some of the sport's brightest young talents and how fans can expect the WNBA to grow each year.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Jared Russo: This season, this is the start of something big isn't it?

Michael Alter: Sure looks like it, feels like it. I hope so. Been a long time coming, moving up to here. But yeah, it's pretty exciting.

JR: How do you and the other franchises plan on capitalizing the momentum, ratings, ticket sales and the amount of eyeballs?

MA: We're doing everything we can to provide a great experience for fans because we know we're going to have a lot of people who may be coming in for the first time. We want to make sure their experience is incredible.

From a business point of view, we are using dynamic pricing for the first time, never done that before, and haven't really had the opportunity to, but we're doing that this year, and being much more creative in how we manage our tickets and whatnot. So, it's a substantial increase in our ticket sales revenue.

We've looked at moving to a large arena for some games, unfortunately, this year, we weren't able to pull it off because of logistics. So next year, we'll probably be doing some of that, too. So, there's lots of stuff that we're doing to take advantage of, and make sure that the growth continues. Because we're just in the early stages of our media rights deal, or I should say our media rights negotiations for our new deal, or current deals got another year on it. That's great timing for us.

JR: I noticed that teams were doing a lot of course correction. There were a lot of teams who were moving to different arenas, I think you are playing a game that's moving? [The Sky's game against the Washington Mystics is moving to the Capital One Arena on June 6.] It seems like the popularity has almost caught everyone off guard, to a certain degree?

MA: The speed with which it's happened, yes, it was not anticipated. Our first preseason game was not streamed. So, we made sure to stream the second one. Same with the charter [flights]. That wasn't quite ready to go. Decision was made quickly. So yes, we're playing a little bit of a catch up in that regard. In fairness to the league, it is happening quickly.

There was nothing in the past that would have suggested this was the game plan that we could have anticipated. All we can do is react, and try and manage it. All in all, there's just been some some mistakes and things you do differently. But I think the league and the teams have done a pretty great job so far.

JR: That's a great problem — you're getting bigger.

MA: Exactly. It's growing pains. But that's a great problem to have.

JR: There are new teams coming: the Golden State Valkyries and possibly a Toronto expansion? How big do you think the WNBA can get?

MA: Expansion is, you know, hard... there's the Expansion Draft, so it impacts your team and players, so you can't be doing too-too much of that, too much at a time, it just becomes disruptive. So my hunch, just my opinion, and I don't speak for the league or anybody else, is that once we get through the media thing [rights deal], we'll take a little pause, get those teams integrated, and then decide when the time is right for the next round.

JR: So you've owned the Sky for a while...

MA: A long time. Almost 20 years!

JR: What memories do you have of that 2021 championship season?

MA: Well, you know, the champion season did seem unbelievable. Until this year. But yeah, it was an amazing moment. Also, coming right after COVID too, I think it made that even more special because everybody was just going crazy.

In the Finals in particular, I came into the arena earlier than I normally do, just went up at the very top corridor and I could kind of take in the whole scene, absorb what was was happening, people piling in and the excitement and energy that you could feel. Just sort of taking that all in — that was pretty special at the time.

I enjoyed that, to have the chance to win, and the way we won it — and to be at home. It's just all just pretty much a storybook ending, and everything was pretty, pretty incredible. Then the parade we had was amazing.

You wonder if people are going to come, what's it going be like, and the city was fantastic. Mayor Lightfoot pulled out the red carpet for us and made it all very special. It happened to be the most glorious day ever. Sunny and 70. So everything just seemed like it was all coming together. Perfect, a beautiful moment.

JR: The likes of Candice Parker and Courtney Vandersloot were established stars, and now you have a rookie, Angel Reese, with superstar potential — how do you nurture an athlete like that?

MA: Very carefully. I mean, you know, Angel... she's got a lot of demands. In fact, she just finally finished her classes last week, I think. So through training camp, she was juggling her schoolwork, the Sky training camp, all of her appearances and the sponsorship stuff that was happening, and the Met Gala. It was a lot for anybody, let alone a 22-year-old rookie.

Some people can handle it. Some people candidly can't. I think, so far, she's shown that she's pretty focused, pretty disciplined, and is able to do 'whatever it takes' to get the focus on where it needs to be at the right time.

Fortunately, we have a coach who knows how to deal with players and manage that kind of thing, because I think it takes a certain deft touch, if you will, sort of flexibility, to recognize that we want to be supportive of her, and what she's trying to do and build in terms of her life outside of the Sky. We very much want her to develop.

I think with her, one of the things that we really loved is that she realizes, as a player, she had a fantastic college career, but she realized to be a great player, to have a great pro career, she's got a lot of growth to do, and a lot of development to come — and so she's very committed to that. I think she's shown that she's got the right work ethic to make it happen. She's very much in a learning growth mode, she knows that she's not going to step in, and dominate right away, she knows that. It's gonna take a lot of collective efforts from from our staff and whatnot, which we're definitely prepared to do.

Player development is a big part of our philosophy of — not just for Angel — but for everybody, not just rookies, but for veterans too. We're always focusing on making our players better, with the analytics and as well as skill development. So yeah, we're gonna be patient with Angel, but also give her all the tools that she needs to be successful.

I think, ultimately, it's gonna be up to her. So far she has shown every sign of having the right mental approach, and the right attitude to embrace that.

JR: I'm also fascinated by the short gap in time between the NCAA Tournament, the draft and the start of the WNBA season. It's so expedited. Why don't more leagues do that?

MA: Well, I'm not sure it's a good thing. In terms of the momentum from the college tournament — that's great. That led to all the excitement and interest in our draft this year, which happened on social media, but for the players, it's tough.

You know, they just played a long season. So with Angel having finished classes and graduation, then they roll right into the WNBA season, it's a lot. We have to, as a team, manage the players and their minutes. We don't want them to burn out. You'll see midway through the season for the rookies, that they kind of hit a wall, a little bit. Mentally and physically they've just been going at it for 11 months, and that's tough for anybody.

So, it has some advantages, some disadvantages. I think, to answer your question why other leagues haven't done it, I think because they'd like to have a little more gap. And also, because we were kind locked into this May through October schedule. We don't have a choice at this stage to change it. Even if we wanted to.

JR: But you do avoid the NFL, which seems to be doing everything in its power to take over Christmas, Thanksgiving, Netflix and Amazon, etc. Avoiding it seems perfect.

MA: Yeah they're a juggernaut. There are only so many windows during the winter. It's something we look at. I think for the foreseeable future this has turned out to be a good spot for us. It's going to help us with our media rights deal, that we're in this time of year, make it more valuable. So, yeah, so we're making the best of it.

[Image: Crain's Chicago Business/YouTube]