2005•The Annals of IowaOpen access
Cornography: Selling Women's Professional Basketball in a Girls' Basketball State
Shelley Lucas
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Abstract
ON MARCH 21, 1978, the newly formed Women's Professional Basketball League (WBL) awarded its first team franchise to Iowa.One of several short-lived professional women's leagues in the 1970s and 1980s, the WBL launched its inaugural season in December 1978 with a roster of eight teams.^ George Nissen, the Cedar Rapids native known for making the trampoline a household word and a longtime benefactor of amateur American gymnasts through his company, Nissen Equipment, bought the Iowa franchise and named the team the Iowa Comets.Nissen chose the name to suggest that the team belonged to the whole state rather than to a particular city and to recognize Iowa's reputation as the "com" state.The team not only took the state's name but also initially played its home ganies in eight different cities in an effort to gain statewide support.^Nissen compared
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