NEWCASTLE (Paul Nilsen’s Women’s Basketball Worldwide) – It pains me to say it, but women’s basketball enters the new calendar year in worrying shape.

I am trying not to have a knee-jerk reaction to 2014, which saw very little to celebrate as far as I am concerned. It was agonising for me trying to promote the sport I love last year when it was serving up poor entertainment and quality - or at least in comparison to most previous years.

I feel like the fizz is in serious danger of going out of the women’s game and we are like a ship in a storm which is heading for the rocks and in dire need of a lighthouse.

So what will be the shining light for the women’s game?

Well, here is the deal people - there isn’t one just going to magically appear. 

Navigation to more enjoyable waters can only be self-propelled – because women’s basketball needs to help itself, in order to recover from an abject year and get back on track.

We have to ensure a dangerous malaise is not allowed to creep in both on and off the court and we must put 2014 behind us, to collectively raise the bar higher again.

We all have to be ‘women’s basketball warriors’ #WBWarriors

I’m certainly one and proud of it too! Are all of you ready to spark the new battle to put women’s basketball on the map?

I am already challenging players during interviews to justify why new fans should bother checking out the women’s game.

The response has been emphatic so far and that has given me renewed hope for 2015. “Because it is pure team basketball” was one response. “Because we can pass and shoot as good as anyone,” was another.

Women’s basketball does have great positives and attributes as outlined above, but we know that this is not the actual perception of the public or mainstream commercial and media partners.

Consequently we have to push the message and change the narrative ourselves – from within the women’s game.

That is obviously done by the pro-women’s basketball media, but also through Federations, professional leagues, clubs, coaches and especially by the players themselves, who all have a responsibility to become ‘women’s basketball warriors’.

Most importantly, fighting the cause to get women’s basketball recognition and equality means winning the PR battle – but this is done primarily by producing better entertainment, a more engaging product on the floor and championing our best young stars like Breanna Stewart, Angela Salvadores and Co.

Critically, Federations must continue to invest in the women’s game, coaches need to do a better job at the grassroots level to develop and enhance fundamentals, while players need to start demonstrating a better level of quality on the court at all levels.

Easier said than done of course, but unless we have an army of women’s basketball warriors out there pushing each other hard to excel, then the women’s game might just fade further into the background.

Women’s basketball needs you in 2015 and 2016, because sitting back and allowing standards to drop in everything we do isn't a viable option.

So, take a look in your own mirror please and ask yourself if you do enough and whether you can become one of the many women's basketball warriors we really do need right now.

Paul Nilsen

FIBA

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