Can the outgoing trifecta of women’s college basketball’s most visible stars attract a bigger spotlight for the WNBA?

That’s what both the league and ESPN are banking on as they held a tightly-staged press conference Thursday to announce an extension of their long-standing television partnership.

The six-year deal, which Sports Business Journal reported ahead of time is worth an estimated $12 million a season, was unveiled along with the WNBA’s new branding campaign and logo.

At times during Thursday’s media event, it was hard to tell whether it was about ESPN’s self-proclaimed commitment to women’s sports more than the WNBA. But it is quite clear that Brittney Griner of Baylor, Skylar Diggins of Notre Dame and Elena Delle Donne of Delaware, who figure to be top three players taken in the April 15 draft, have generated the kind of national press that the WNBA has dreamed about.

For as loaded as the pro league has been since its inception with former college All-Americans and Olympians, their visibility drops during a time of year when most fans (this one included) don’t have much basketball in mind.

The question at the top is one that has been posed many times before. Here’s another one: Remember Diana Taurasi? UConn’s iconic guard and three-time national champion has had a stellar WNBA career leading Phoenix to two titles, as well as three Olympic gold medals and European crowns in Russia.

But as she completes her first decade after college, Taurasi’s feats have largely flown under the larger national sports radar. When Griner joins Taurasi in Phoenix — the Mercury won the draft lottery — will that truly generate a closer look at a WNBA that has been around for 16 years? Griner’s potential dominance in the pros could be as unprecedented as her spectacular impact on the college game.

Diggins has become something of a national sports celebrity thanks to her social media acumen, counting the rapper Lil Wayne (reports of his death have been greatly exaggerated) among her many admirers. Whether she goes to Chicago with the No. 2 pick or Tulsa at No. 3, she’s easily the personality player of this trio. But will that interest wane as she takes her game to the dead of summer, and then overseas, where the real money is earned by female pros?

Delle Donne, the one-time UConn signee, is as pure a shooter and scorer as the women’s game has had in years, and there’s no doubt she can gun it in the pros. She’ll have to learn to play some stellar defense in the W and get used to its rather rugged physicality.

The hope is that they’ll do for the WNBA what Magic Johnson and Larry Bird’s arrival did for the NBA — broaden its appeal far beyond the purists.

The WNBA is coming off its lowest average attendance for a season since it began in 1997, and Griner is a once-in-a-lifetime-player whose presence has been compared to that of Wilt Chamberlain.

While reading through some Tweets of WNBA players during the press conference, it’s easy to understand why seasoned pros, most of whom are now playing in Europe, Asia and Australia for their real living, might chafe at the hype.

Most revealing were the comments of Erlana Larkins, a former college standout at North Carolina who plays for the WNBA champion Indiana Fever and is currently winding down her Turkish domestic league season. In response to another Tweet she said:

league has superstars that have proven themselves how can u be a superstar & have yet 2 play in a pro game yet

And this:

Griner is huge & everything but unless she gets get weight up she won’t be as prosperous as everyone thinks

While I groused (only once!) on Twitter about ESPN’s relentless promotions of “3 to See” during the NCAA Tournament, from a business and promotional point of view it makes sense.

At the same time, the Phoenix marketing staff isgiving away tickets to men in an attempt to appeal to a segment of the sports-watching public that supposedly doesn’t think much of female athletes.

Not only that, but the Mercury has set up Twitter hashtags #ManUp and #CureTheCooties as part of this campaign.

Yes: “Cure the Cooties.”

Welcome to the fourth grade, fellas.

A franchise with Brittney Griner coming on board is resorting to a gimmick like this?

While they indulge in the hard sell of “enlightening” men about the women’s game, the Mercury and the WNBA still aren’t addressing why more women don’t watch and become fans. They are dealing in a bottom-line reality that NBA commissioner David Stern has laid out for the women’s league to achieve beyond his departure: To become more financially self-sustaining.

Star power is what got the NBA where it is, so expect a further deluge of ESPN’s “3 to See” branding at the next level. Name recognition beyond what appeals to hard-core fans explains the prominence of Bill Laimbeer during Thursday’s presser. He’s back in the league after guiding the former Detroit Shock to multiple WNBA crowns, and now is GM and head coach of a New York Liberty franchise that has been floundering for too many years.

As Shelley DuBois noted at Fortune.com, three of the WNBA’s 12 teams have turned a modest profit, as well as the league overall. The money per team as part of the new ESPN contract is $1 million a season and that’s nothing to dismiss: “In a way, the cold business of it is heartening: This deal wouldn’t have taken place if it wouldn’t work financially.”

Bingo. The business of women’s sports, especially professional team sports, will always be a sliver of what their male counterparts enjoy, but this is a notable development. Increased ticket sales — not patronizing giveaways — and corporate sponsorships remain just as important as branding campaigns and buzzwords.

As for the new logo, I’ll admit it doesn’t do much for me. Instead of a female dribbling, she is now shooting a layup, which is supposed to signify another phase in the development of women’s pro basketball.

But the less gimmicky the WNBA becomes, the better. If we’re going to have cheesy promos, I’m totally old-school, a hopeless nostalgiac for the funky funky 70s that ESPN reprised in the early years of the league. What’s easy to forget now is how effective these ads were, and how much of a sense of fun they evoked. There’s nothing wrong with keeping that going.

A question often raised about women’s athletics — and it’s usually posed as a rhetorical one — resurfaced recently following a suggestion from a WNBA coach that her players might just be too “nice” when the reality of competitive sports gets a little nasty:

“Could women’s sports use some bad girls?”

The attempt at an answer revolved around the usual ingredients: Among women athletes in general, there are much lower instances of self-absorbed, narcissistic comportment during games and controversial personae away from them. Rare is the story of a female athlete in trouble with the law.

The writer above, Chicago Daily Herald columnist Patricia Babcock McGraw, a former basketball player at Northwestern, is clearly on the side of better behavior, but she is also careful to repeat the all-important mantra that female athletes ought to serve as “role models” (plenty more on that in a bit).

Yet there’s still this nagging question that she seems to understand works against her preference:

“Would women’s sports get more of a following if the athletes were edgier, more outspoken, more brash?”

In praise of the human carnival

The answer may have been provided on Sunday during the U.S. women’s soccer team’s epic victory over Brazil in the quarterfinal of the Women’s World Cup.

What was on display — in addition to Abby Wambach’s ferocious extra-time equalizer — was the stuff that makes sports so compelling for fans: High drama, intrigue, controversy, dubious sports(wo)manship and ultimately, a comeback for the ages.

This involved all females, including the Australian referee, in a sport about which Americans are generally indifferent.

It was pure spectacle, with a healthy dose of American sports patriotism/exceptionalism thrown in, as is the case during the Olympics.

Above all, it was entertainment. Incredibly memorable entertainment.

That’s a word that rarely crops up in discussions about women’s sports, especially at the professional level. Even in the 15-year-old WNBA, the default mode for talking about how to broaden its audience revolves around the “role model” ideal. New WNBA president Laurel Richie mentions this repeatedly as she makes her way to all 12 league cities this summer.

While watching Minnesota Lynx rookie Maya Moore torch the Connecticut Sun for 26 points over the weekend, Richie rattled through the same litany of praise during a telecast on NBA TV. Yes, Moore is humble and is the perfect emobidment of what Richie and others in women’s sports desire above all: A great player who’s also a “good girl.”

But as I watched Moore, all I could blurt out was: “This woman’s going to tear this league apart. Absolutely destroy it.”

Her entertainment value is undeniable because of the way she plays the game. Moore’s blend of supreme skill and burning desire have already rendered her one of the best players in the history of women’s college basketball. She’ll likely have the same impact as a pro and as an Olympian. She is a basketball purist’s dream.

Yet somehow that’s not enough.

For the “role model” burden is a product of a women’s sports movement that preaches the urgency of teaching young girls well, in hopes that they will soon follow along. And further the claim that they can provide a morally superior alternative to the male sports culture feminists loathe.

While it is a good thing to exhibit good behavior and teamwork, respect for opponents and the games they play, the extent to which this demand is made also has the effect of making women athletes one-dimensional characters. It denies the reality that they are human beings, filled with the same contradictions, grievances, anger and unbecoming traits as men. Women may act out them out differently, and I’ll set aside for now the issue of whether that’s due to real gender distinctions or social conditioning, or some of both.

Role models or robots?

What is noticeable is how the desire to be “good girls” is a strong notion among many female athletes. They’ve learned well the lessons of their foremothers about being wholesome role models, instead of scantily-clad models in racy magazine pictorials emphasizing looks over athletic talent.

The rare cases of bad deeds off the court get a good denunciation within The Sisterhood as well. When WNBA star Diana Taurasi was charged with DUI two years ago, ESPN.com columnist MeChelle Voepel was especially harsh, suggesting Taurasi should be banned from the league’s all-star game. This is more than just another case of a sportswriter preaching morality at an athlete. Taurasi’s offense apparently was against not only the Phoenix community, but her team, league and sport as well:

“She is the first truly high-profile WNBA player to get in any serious legal trouble.

“Considering what a popular, visible and vocal presence she is for her franchise, the league and the sport of women’s basketball, this is as much a worst-case scenario as the WNBA hopes it ever has to deal with.”

Taurasi’s brash style is comparable to that of U.S. goalkeeper Hope Solo, whose outburst after being benched in the 2007 Women’s World Cup semifinals catapulted her into a different kind of female athletic notoreity.

As Sports Illustrated writer Grant Wahl examined prior to the 2008 Olympics, Solo was frozen out by her teammates, not allowed to be in uniform or on the bench for the third place game and even the team’s flight home from China. He addresses the sisterly bonding established by the celebrated 1999 U.S. Women’s World Cup team that the fiercely independent Solo breached:

“No episode in U.S. women’s soccer history has convulsed the team more than the Solo saga, which has strained friendships and sparked fundamental questions about the nature of women’s sports. Did Solo’s outburst violate a team-first ethos that was a cornerstone of the U.S. women’s appeal and success, or was that mentality naive in the first place? Did her punishment fit the crime? And would it even have been imposed on a men’s team? ‘In England guys get in fights and arguments all the time, and usually within an hour or by the next day everything’s fine,’ says former U.S. men’s keeper Kasey Keller, who has played 17 seasons in Europe. ‘But to be completely ostracized? I’ve never heard of anything like that.’ “

And yet the meme of innate female virtue persists. In last Sunday’s game, Brazilian defender Erika feigned an injury that ironically might have yielded the Americans enough stoppage time to score. In The New York Times this morning, Jeré Longman referred to recent research claiming that women do things like this very rarely, as compared to male soccer players. Former U.S. captain Julie Foudy, now ESPN’s lead Women’s World Cup commentator:

“Men have a tendency to draw the foul much better than women. They know and understand pressure, when to go down even though they’re not hit hard. Some are brilliant at it. Women play far too honest sometimes. They take the hit, ride the tackle and stay on their feet. I do think that will change.”

Just let them be

Ironically, one of the teammates most adamant about banishing Solo in 2007 was Wambach. After beating Brazil, they appeared together on the ESPN Women’s World Cup set from Germany, talking about the mutual respect they had developed.

They’ve shared the same amount of sporting hell and now glory together, the staples of all great compelling sports entertainment. Braced around Wambach’s heroics were Solo’s moments: She saved a second-half penalty kick, only to have Brazil given a retake because of an encroachment call that has not been fully explained; in the penalty kick phase she made the clinching save.

This is the sort of thing that draws people to sports. Too see athletes struggle, and lift themselves back up, and the way the American team did, and not just against Brazil, but over the last four years, has been mesmerizing.

While I was covering the 1999 Women’s World Cup — still the best gig I’ve ever had — the euphoria of an unexpected moment was intoxicating. So was the too-good-to-be-true saga of the girls next door, hoisted as perfect “role models” for all the little girls of America and beyond.

This was employed to create the first fully professional women’s soccer league in the world. Longman again, following the demise of Women’s United Soccer Association, with blunt post-mortems from sports marketers:

“In other words, if the league had played down ’sugar and spice’ wholesomeness campaigns meant to attract 8- to 12-year-olds, and sold the concept of the players as strong women, the W.U.S.A. could have kept the youth audience and also made itself relevant to a much wider group of adolescent girls and young women.”

When WUSA’s successor, Women’s Professional Soccer, had barely gotten underway in 2009, there were calls to draw paying spectators with an appeal to social activism. Having covered the WUSA, I responded very emphatically that this wasn’t going to cut it either. Women’s sports has got to stop being about a cause, and at the pro level needs to be treated as a business. The business of sports entertainment.

What’s going to sell women’s sports in the long haul will not be an incessant appeal to virtue but rather to sparkling, dramatic entertainment that attracts adults and youngsters alike. As a female marketing friend who’s a fan of women’s sports often tells me, people don’t watch or buy tickets to sporting events to see role models. They want to be entertained.

It’s not a matter of needing more “bad girls” but rather allowing women athletes to be the fully human, adult creatures they are.

This week espnW has been running a series examining the possibilities of women competing in men’s professional sports leagues. Veteran reporter Jane McManus does a good job detailing the physical and cultural obstacles women face in football, while Pat Borzi does the same in baseball.

I do admire the women facing very long odds of ever succeeding on the most-dominated fields of play that exist in American sports, and I don’t suspect the cultures of baseball and football will ever embrace women as basketball and soccer have. Theirs is a passion bordering on obsession that is hard to deny — and it is generally a healthy obsession. Perhaps some of these women may parlay that passion into front office and off-the-field careers that are rarities today, or inspire other females to do so.

I also understand the media fascination with this subject, because this is another part of the women’s sports realm devoted to novelty. In fact, the entire field of women’s athletics for many — including some of its biggest advocates — is regarded as experimental ground for working through social issues.

Another trendy topic that gets women’s sports advocates all aflutter is American-style gridiron football — whether it’s championing the fledgling pro women’s league that’s been around for several years or condeming the new lingerie variety that has some of the Sisters of Perpetual Indignance absolutely beside themselves.

But while the latter is mildly amusing, the rest of all this is frankly boring. While women have made enormous athletic and physical strides in my lifetime, the constant obsession — and this is an unhealthy one — to see whether women can really hold their own against men is more than quixotic.

It takes away from acknowledging the most remarkable development there has ever been in women’s sports: The everyday exploits of females on fields, courts, pools and other venues of play, just to play. They’re not always doing so to chase a college scholarship, or aim for professional or Olympic glory, although some get that far. Hardly any do it to prove themselves against men.

It’s been this critical mass, built up over decades, that has helped lead to entities like the WNBA, which is holding its own after a sometimes-rocky decade and a half of existence. Yet in Thursday’s espnW installment, Diana Taurasi is asked the inevitable question about women playing in the NBA, and she handles it well enough. But her fellow pro hoopster Tina Thompson, the last active charter WNBA member, really throws it down the best:

“The question is insignificant. The point of creating the WNBA was to have a league of our own.”

Thank you.

With all due respect to an intriguing topic, what’s the point of all this? I thought it was a marvelous moment for women’s sports earlier this year when the frat boys of American sports media got all worked up with comparisons between the winning streaks of the UConn women and the UCLA men. These are the things that make sports great — the arguments on talk radio, message boards and social media that never end, and always fascinate. Who was better? Mays or Mantle? What about DiMaggio or Williams? Russell’s Celtics or Magic’s Lakers? Lombardi’s Packers or Montana’s 49ers? You’re forgetting the Bulls and the Steelers, idiots! Etc., etc.

That a women’s team sport had reached such a lofty perch in the mainstream sports spotlight was perhaps as notable as what it accomplished on the court. Even amid the clamor of this being apples and oranges, or claims that the UConn women could never beat the UCLA men on the floor.

That was never the point. Neither has it been the purpose of the development of women’s sports to see whether the best females they produce might have an actual shot against the men. There’s a fairly obvious reason why most sports are sex-segregated, and there’s nothing wrong with acknowledging that. While the espnW series thankfully doesn’t address the absurd claims of Colette Dowling in “The Frailty Myth,” it still gives far too serious credence to an unrealistic, as well as an insignificant, question.

As I read these stories, I detected a ghost that haunts women’s sports advocates — the fear of invisibility. The barrier-busting, “woman in a man’s world” narrative holds media attention, but only as long as the novelty lasts.

Auriemma, who will lead the American national team in the London Olympics, said at a U.S. training camp this week in Las Vegas he doesn’t worry about the comparative lack of attention for women athletes:

“We could go 39-0 (at UConn) three years in a row and not get the amount of media that goes to a men’s Final Four. It’s just part of the deal. People are either going to appreciate you or they’re not. I’m sure there is an (Olympic) swimmer who says, ‘I’m up at 5 a.m. every day. Where is everyone?’ Or the guys on the crew team who say, ‘We’re in the water busting our ass every morning. Where is everyone?’

“Does it bug me? No. When you look back five years, the attention is better now than it has ever been. I would just like it if one of our players made a 3-pointer at the buzzer to win the gold medal, she wouldn’t have to take her shirt off to get the coverage it would deserve.”

I firmly believe that the biggest challenges facing women’s sports in America have nothing to do Title IX or wasted cultural obsessions, but with broadening their mainstream appeal, attracting corporate sponsors, working to establish the viability of professional leagues and taking the ideological fury out of getting in the game. Some may find it boring and even dispiriting, but some recent developments make this even more imperative:

– The extremely endangered state of the Women’s Professional Soccer league has taken another heartbreaking turn. If this 3-year-old circuit, now down to six teams, makes it through the season, it will be a miracle.

– The WNBA continues to get a strong endorsement from David Stern, and as long as he feels that way it isn’t going anywhere. But he didn’t dance around his rationale for recently hiring successful marketing executive Laurel Richie as the new WNBA president. He wants to strengthen the league as a business.

– Even the venerable LPGA, now 61 years old, remains on enough fragile financial ground that a respected and fair-minded golf journalist not long ago created a possible scenario for how it might thrive as part of the PGA.

The next barriers to be broken for women in spectator sports will not be about crashing men’s leagues, but making the leagues they have and the games they play compelling and worthy to just more than a small, intense few.

In some ways, not becoming a novelty might be a more difficult feat to pull off.