Details of Los Angeles Sparks and the Ticket Luck value
Los Angeles Sparks
Based in Los Angeles, California, Los Angeles Sparks are a Women's National Basketball Association team. They are one of the original WNBA teams founded in 1997and were one of the teams that participated in the league's opening game.
The Sparks have been a focal point of the league since their beginning, and had little success and went through several coaches. After the team signed former Los Angeles Lakers star Michael Cooper as head coach and made some key roster changes, the team made a quick turnaround. Since then, they have been one of the most consistently successful teams in the WNBA.
The team's major star has always been USC standout Lisa Leslie, who led the Sparks since being signed to the team in 1997. The Sparks are the sister team of the Los Angeles Lakers.
Uniform: Golden with purple lines on the side at home, with the name Sparks written across in purple. Purple with golden yellow lines on the side on the road, with the name Sparks in Yellow. It looks similar to the Los Angeles Lakers' uniform.
Franchise History
The Sparks lost to the New York Liberty in the WNBA's inaugural game. Its player Penny Toler scored the league's first two points with a lay-up in that game. The Sparks had a disappointing season in 1997, finishing with a record of 14-14. In 1998, the Sparks finished only 12-18, missing the playoffs once more. They earned playoff berths with the help of Lisa Leslie in 1999 and 2000, but their hopes ended in disappointment, when the Houston Comets eliminated them.
In 2001, former Los Angeles Lakers player Michael Cooper coached the Sparks to their first championship, after the Sparks were able to finally eliminate the Comets in the playoffs, and beat the Charlotte Sting for the championship. In 2002, Leslie became the first woman to dunk in the league and the Sparks returned to the WNBA Finals, defeating the New York Liberty, becoming nonstop champions. They returned to the Finals in 2003, but lost to the Detroit Shock in three games.
The 2004 season marked a season of change for the Sparks. They signed two standout players, Tamika Whitmore and Teresa Weatherspoon, who had played for their rival team the New York Liberty. In addition, their coach Michael Cooper left midseason to seek a coaching job in the NBA. While the Sparks finished with one of the league's best regular season records, the Sacramento Monarchs eliminated them in the first round of the playoffs.
In 2005, the Sparks made the playoffs in the Western Conference in the fourth and final playoff berth. They lost the series in two games.
Former University of Tennessee star Chamique Holdsclaw was a key addition to the team's roster in 2005. She came to the Sparks in a trade that sent Delisha Milton-Jones and a first-round draft pick to the Washington Mystics. With Lisa Leslie, they formed one of the most difficult duos in the league.
In 2006, the Sparks posted the best record in the regular season, but lost again to the Sacramento Monarchs in the Western Conference finals.
After the season ended, team owner Jerry Buss announced he was selling the Sparks. On December 7, 2006, the Los Angeles Times reported that the NBA Board of Governors had collectively approved the $10 million sale to an investor group led by Kathy Goodman (a high school teacher at HighTechHigh-LA in Encino) and Carla Christofferson (a litigation attorney for the O'Melveny & Myers law firm). The next day Leslie announced that she was pregnant and would not play in the WNBA in the 2007 season.
Media coverage
Some Sparks's games are shown on Fox Sports Net West/Prime Ticket with Larry Burnett and Ann Meyers as the announcers. Burnett also calls the games on radio, on KTLK AM1150.
The Sparks may have had the worst radio situation in WNBA history in the early 2000s. KLAC aired the Anaheim Angels (Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim) throughout the WNBA season. Eventually, the team signed with KWKU AM1220, a sister station of KWKW based in Pomona. KWKU agreed to break up the signal so that the Sparks games could air on that frequency. But the station's signal was only 500 watts. In addition, KWKU had no web site, streaming audio, or even a studio with a direct phone line. Eventually, the team moved many of its home games to brokered-time station KXMX in Anaheim, and finally, in 2005 to KTLK, which had been created when owner Clear Channel Communications ended its earlier simulcast with XETRA-AM 690 kHz.
