Poll: Most Mystics fans think that ESA is too small for the WNBA

Let’s get to our results, on a topic where Mystics and Wizards fans will disagree.

Thank you for your responses to this week’s SB Nation Washington Mystics Reacts survey. Here are the results!

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Most Mystics fans felt the team should have never moved out of Capital One Arena after the 2018 WNBA season.

We asked how you felt about the Potomac Yard arena situation this past week. Sure, the Mystics aren’t expected to move to Alexandria, but the plan, if successful, involves the team moving back to Capital One Arena. In addition, Diamond Holton wrote a column on why the Mystics are fine where they are at the Entertainment and Sports Arena — and why they shouldn’t be affected by these other plans.

Out of nearly 200 respondents, we saw some interesting results and key differences between the way Mystics fans see the arena situation and Wizards fans (who are mostly lukewarm or don’t care about the Mystics).

In our first question, we asked if you believed that the Mystics should have never moved out of Capital One Arena at all. It was a divided result, but 60 percent of you believe so. I personally didn’t like the move, but I understood why. Capital One Arena was too big for the Mystics at the time.

The Mystics were never a flagship WNBA franchise and struggled to get decent crowds, especially after the 2010 season when they fired their entire front office and began their worst two-year stretch in franchise history. Though the Mystics have won a championship now, they at least are a much more respected organization than during the pre-Mike Thibault years.

Nearly 9 in 10 Mystics fans think that the Entertainment and Sports Arena is too small for a WNBA team.

Our second question asked whether ESA is too small for the WNBA. Eighty-eight percent of you believed that it was.

This is where Diamond and I differ.

Like most respondents, I agree that ESA is and was always too small for the WNBA. The WNBA, like any other professional sports league, deserves consistency in its product. All teams should have a practice facility. All teams deserve a good homecourt advantage in their home arena. And the league deserves to have arenas that are consistently sized. One team shouldn’t be in an 18,000-seat arena while another has just 4,000.

The Seattle Storm and Minnesota Lynx play in NBA ready and NBA arenas. As the WNBA grows and as these teams eventually become contenders again, they can handle those crowds. But the Mystics are stuck with just 4,200. That arena was originally planned to have 5,000 or so.

While the Mystics may enjoy homecourt advantage, loud crowds, and sold-out crowds, it’s important to realize that by playing at such a small arena, it reflects one of these two things.

Either the D.C. market is really only able to get 4,000 fans to a Mystics game in a league that is otherwise growing, or the WNBA is possibly trying to ensure that all teams, including expansion teams, play in an adequately sized arena.

I don’t think the D.C. market is only capable of bringing 4,000 paid seats to a WNBA game. The same goes for the Atlanta Dream, the team with the smallest arena, at just 3,500 seats.

Most Mystics fans want the team to move to a different, larger arena. But the results are divided.

In our final question, we asked what you think should happen to the Mystics and their arena situation. If Monumental Sports’ Alexandria arena plan is successful, the plan was to bring the Mystics back to Capital One Arena. But if the arena plan fails, the Mystics stay at ESA with little room to grow, even though the homecourt advantage is nice.

Nearly two-thirds, or 66 percent, of respondents believe that the Mystics should move to a larger D.C. area arena. The most convenient large arena would be Capital One Arena, of course. But the Mystics could be booted into other facilities for the WNBA postseason when they make the playoffs.

Other facilities that the Mystics could feasibly move to include EagleBank Arena at George Mason University. in Fairfax, Va. It carries nearly 10,000 people and is managed by Monumental Sports. The Xfinity Center in College Park is the Maryland Terrapins’ home arena which carries nearly 18,000 people. Many Mystics players and fans have Terrapins ties, so this is another potential fit. The downside of these college arenas, however, is that they aren’t in Washington and are toward the western and eastern edges of the metro area. Commuting to Fairfax from the Maryland suburbs or College Park from the Virginia suburbs is nothing short of hell.

Thirty-one percent of you said that staying at ESA in some form is the best option. One thing I’m pondering over is whether that arena could be expanded. It would allow the Mystics to retain the homecourt advantage they have, but also keep them as an anchor tenant of Congress Heights and Ward 8; that may require that the MedStar Health Performance Center be reconfigured since it adjoins ESA. Also, the Mystics will probably have to move (again) for a couple years to accommodate an expansion.

I don’t think an expanded ESA will (or can) carry 10,000 fans, but an arena of, let’s say, 7,000 fans is closer in line to where most WNBA facilities are than 4,200.

Finally, three percent of respondents believe that the best option for the Mystics is to relocate to a new market. In such a scenario, Monumental Sports & Entertainment would likely sell the Mystics to a new owner. Unlike the 2000s, when teams folded due to a lack of interested buyers, there are multiple markets and potential ownership groups looking for a WNBA team, including Toronto, Louisville, Florida and Portland, where the WNBA turned down an expansion team request at the 11th hour. To be clear, this scenario is very unlikely to happen.

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That’s what I have for this week. Thanks again for responding!

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