By Tim Clinton

Sports Editor

Increased popularity and COVID-related communication technology improvements have brought on many changes to covering the Women's National Basketball Association for Dick Fain since he accepted his job as the voice of the Seattle Storm in 2008.

"In 2008 I took over just radio, and we only had one or two TV games then," said the Normandy Park resident and Mount Rainier graduate.  "That tells you the difference.  Now nearly every game is on TV locally or nationally.  The WNBA is no longer a niche sport.  It has morphed into a mainstream sport now."

Fain has found himself doing the play by play on television only since 2013 and on KOMO and CW for this year.

"That side of the job the spotlight has been put on," Fain said.  "It's had fantastic ratings, and the Storm had record attendance last year.  There's more games now.  It's an expanded season."

But the expanded schedule has not resulted in more road games for Fain.

"My first five seasons I did home and road games on radio," he said.  "The next seven years I just did home games because they cut funding for moving the broadcast team.  In 2020 with COVID the NBA and the WNBA moved into the bubble.  I didn't do any games in the bubble.  They had one broadcast crew that called all of the games."

But COVID also led to more communication technology like Zoom, and that led to a better situation after COVID let up.

"The Storm invested in a state of the art facility,"  Fain said.  "I do road games from a remote setting."

That setting is a $64 million performance center in the Interbay area of Seattle on 500,000 square feet of property.

"It was all privately funded by ownership," Fain said.  "It's beautiful, and the first of its kind in the WNBA."

Fain, who is now in his 29th year working for KJR radio and has been on the 3-7 p.m. show since 2018, finds the place quite handy even though he lives 30 minutes away in Normandy Park.

"it's five minutes from the KJR studios," said Fain, who broadcasts on 93.3 FM.  "So if I cover a game after work,  I can just zip over there.   I go from KJR to the studio, or the Climate Pledge Arena for home games.  So I'm busy in the afternoons and evenings."

Very busy.

"I have less time in the summer with a full time job on top of the other job," Fain said.  "So my summers are pretty packed."

But the decreased travel has led to more family time with his wife of 18 years, Janna, and son Dixon and daughter Aubrey.

Fain has coached his son's select basketball team for nine seasons, and has returned to helping coach at Mount Rainier High School where Dixon is a freshman.  Fain assisted there in a previous stint for 15 years until 2013.

"My son is also an accomplished junior golfer, so I've gone to California and stuff with that," Fain said.

Aubrey is a year-round swimmer who also competes in middle school basketball and volleyball as a seventh grader.

"Swimming is her No. 1 sport," Fain said.

Fain's No. 1 sport in his days at Mount Rainier was basketball until his graduation in 1992, although he also competed in swimming in the same winter season until a person was no longer allowed to do that and he chose basketball only as a senior.

Fain went on to study broadcast journalism at the University of Washington until he graduated in 1996.  He started at KJR in 1997 and started with the Storm with their inception in 2000 doing statistics and some reporting for radio.

Fain was first approached about becoming the Storm play by play broadcaster permanently in 2007 but KJR needed him to host evenings that year and that would be too much in conflict with Storm games.  He was able to accept in 2008 when the Storm position opened up again, however.

"They came back that next year and KJR was good with it," Fain said.

Fain expects another strong season from the Storm in 2025, after they won titles in 2004, 2010, 2018 and 2020 and made the playoffs in 2024.

"I think they will be very competitive," he said.  "They should absolutely be a playoff team again."

Seattle has a veteran heavy roster, with one rookie making the team.

"I guess that's a testament to the veterans they added," Fain said.  "So they really were not able to beat those veterans out."

There are also only 13 teams for players to land roster spots on, but the WNBA is expanding to 15 teams with the addition of franchises in Portland and Toronto for 2026 and that should help.

The increased popularity of the sport and increased revenue from television should help the problem of too many injuries.

"These players play a ton of games 10-11 months a year,"  Fain said.  "The more popular it becomes, the more TV money and more money for the players.  They should be able to just play in the WNBA.  That would help the overuse injuries."

Fain plans on sticking with his KJR and Storm jobs for the near future as well as with coaching.

"I've done it for so long and enjoy it," said the 50 year-old Fain.  "The kids are still at home for another six years.  When that happens, we'll see where I'm at.  I'm happy doing what I'm doing now."