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The WNBA (Women's National Basketball Association) began with eight teams and started league play in 1997. With its advertising slogan of "We Got Next," the WNBA got off to a gradual start, but picked up speed as the competing American Basketball Association folded in 1999 and the WNBA Houston Comets received an invitation to the White House Rose Garden in 2000. Since 2007, ESPN has held an 8-year contract to broadcast WNBA games, the first such contract to provide rights fees to a women's professional league.Through the years, teams have come and gone--or relocated to new cities--but the league has endured.