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Sean Deveney, The Sporting News
There's no TV in 'team basketball'
August 8, 2005
Hip-hip, hooray. The 2005-06 schedule is out, and if you're anything like me, you've spent the afternoon highlighting (in red) the games so monumental that you're planning to pack up and go them see live, the games (in Gatorade yellow) enthralling enough that you absolutely must watch them on TV no matter which relative graduates/has a birthday/dies, the ones (in orange) worth watching because they figure to be more important than most realize and the ones (in deep, dark black) that you would not watch with someone else's eyes.
But then, you probably are not like me. For your sake, I hope not. Thus, I am not going to waste your time highlighting which games will be most important. There are 82 games per team, everybody plays each other and if you need me to tell you that the Knicks at Pistons matchup should have some added intrigue, well, then, you really haven't been paying attention, have you?
The thing that does interest me about the schedule, though, is seeing which teams get national airplay. To me, that is a big factor in how the league markets itself. If you present the best teams throughout the season, you can drum up fan interest in the style of those teams, and, when the playoffs come around, fans will be more interested in watching.
That's why I felt physically ill when I looked at how the league is handling the Lakers in this "42-40 or bust!" season they have ahead. At best, this is the seventh-seeded team in the West. At worst, it's back to the lottery. The Lakers will be on national television (ESPN, ABC and TNT) a staggering 24 times, tied with Miami for most in the league. I watched the Wizards a fair amount last season, and I grew to appreciate the subtleties of Kwame Brown's deer-in-headlights facial expressions, but bringing those expressions to a national audience 24 times in one season does little to advance basketball on a national level. Maybe I am wrong.
I have been saying for three years that the league must stop following the Michael Jordan marketing script, which states, "Find your biggest star, and jam him down the throats of the unsuspecting public." It worked when you had Jordan. It's not working with the bunch that is out there now.
But think about it: If you want people to appreciate the NBA as a team game, show them team basketball. Don't show them Kobe Bryant 24 times. That's like trying to educate the public on the dangers of obesity by showing them Louie Anderson videos.
Twenty-four Kobe and Shaq games will be on national television. LeBron James and the Cavaliers -- who have not been to the postseason in a decade -- will be on 23 times. Wonderful. The Spurs, the favorites to win the le, will be on 21 times. The Pistons, the East favorites, will be on 19 times. Phoenix will appear 23 times, and Indiana has 18 spots. The message on this is clear: We don't care about showing fans team ball, we care about giving them Kobe, LeBron and Shaq. Then, when none of those players is still going in the Finals in June, we'll sit around and wonder why no one is watching.
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I didn't realize the Los Angeles Lottery Lakers were going to be on that much...and yes, it's ridiculous. I agree totally with Mr.Deveny on this one...the NBA will only have itself to blame when ratings for the playoffs and finals are once again low compared to other sports' playoffs and championships.
24 national TV appearances for a lottery team? More fodder for the conspiracy theorists. I know its about TV market but the Lakers sucked last year and I really don't see them getting better. I also know its about name recognition but still....does the NBA expect that Kwame Brown and possibly Derek Anderson playing second fiddle to His Arrogantness will boost ratings?
Good article. He's right on point when he says that the NBA needs to move past it's MJ marketing techniques........they need to realize it worked because he was MJ! It ain't going to work with the players we have now.
Also, he makes a great point in saying that the NBA schedules so many lottery/non championship caliber teams such as the Lakers and Cavs during the regular season and when they aren't around in the postseason, wonder why ratings are down.
Good article.
Deveney is kidding himself if he thinks that showing the Spurs, Pistons, and Pacers on TV more will cause fans to buy into the team game. It will take a lot more work than that.
I don't think the NBA will rebound as a spectator sport until it goes back to being a sport that a lot of people, young and old, like to play. And the league has to find a way to market the league to those parts of the country that are hooked on basketball, outside the inner cities, and start re-growing its fan base. For example, the Midwest is a basketball hotbed, but the league has little to no presence there, and almost goes out of its way to alienate those fans.
How pathetic is the NBA when kids from Wisconsin to Missouri regard high school basketball the way Texas kids do high school football, and the league does nothing to attract them? All those people watch high school basketball, and worship Big 10 and Big XII hoops, but ignore the NBA.
For the time being, I suppose David Stern is content to develop the league's Latin American and Asian markets while the game flounders in the States.
Extra Stout, I don't know what you're talking about...
Its not about marketing for people who enjoy a sport in and of itself, they already like it. I understand as far as hero worship goes that image of its players is important, but lets forget about kids and think about adults here.
I am a fairly moderate/conservative elementary school teacher. I care only slightly about the players image, and mostly about what the game looks like as it is played. I care little for constant dunks and running, and more for strategy and logical, sound play. And I admire players for their skills, while acknowledging that some are jerks (kg, kobe, shaq, ect...)
I think alot of people don't like the NBA because they like to root for thier college team, and they don't have a local NBA team. I think people have way more choices on tv now than they did 10 years ago, and this segments ratings. For the most part, I don't watch tv so I am not affected by whatever image is portrayed there anyway. Maybe the NBA should start to fully utilize "white hope" dirk; put on midwestern commercials to emphasize how they can relate to the teams? Is this were you are going?
So let me get this straight,
The defending champs are going to be the 4th most broadcasted team this year?
2 Lottery teams are being shown more than them?
Wow, that's sad.
That's not sad, that's business.
The TV network people's jobs are to get ratings so that they can sell ads.
The the job of the Spurs is to make some money of their own, and to win.
But think about it: If you want people to appreciate the NBA as a team game, show them team basketball. Don't show them Kobe Bryant 24 times. That's like trying to educate the public on the dangers of obesity by showing them Louie Anderson videos.
finally someone sees it!
now maybe if stern and the rest of the tv goof offs learned a little by reading the article
Showing team play won't work unless the announcers work on it too. Yes, show the dazzling dunk, but also show how a team makes a play work.
Well, the NFL is the standard as far as pro sports leagues go. Why are they so much more popular than MLB or the NBA?
First of all, the NFL promotes the game of football, from pee wee on up. The NBA does not do this. For years, they have promoted dunks and scowls and fancy dribbling. An entire generation has been brought up taught that basketball is something different from what it actually is. A lot of mainstream fans are turned off by the image of scowling dribblers doing nothing but dunking. So they don't watch to begin with. And the ones who tune in expecting that kind of game don't see it, because teams built around one player dribbling the ball for 20 seconds and trying to dunk, then scowling, usually go 13-69.
Other leagues promote their game. The NBA promotes an image that is very different from the product on the floor. It's almost as if they are embarrassed by the actual product. What kind of message do you think that sends? If the NBA isn't proud of their game enough to present it as it really is, then why should America bother watching it?
And this isn't something they can fix overnight. You can't tell America your game is one thing for 20 years, and then wake up and realize you've created this huge disconnect, and all of a sudden say, "huh, we just realized we're really a team game based upon solid fundamentals and skills!"
Now football is especially popular in Texas, the South, and along the East Coast. The NFL does a good job of catering to all kinds of people from different subcultures who are attracted to football to begin with. If you like football, they have something to offer.
Not so the NBA. On the national level, they cater to the hip-hop crowd, the corporate types who buy season tickets, and that's it. Any attempt to branch out is half-hearted and hamfisted. The Midwestern hoops hotbed gets ignored. And they act like the two (inner-city vs. farmbelt) are mutually exclusive. Really? Then why is it that the NFL has inner-city kids AND Texas rednecks AND Pennsylvania blue-collar types loving their league, along with everybody else? If they can do it, why does NBA marketing insist upon giving the middle finger to everybody outside their core base? They act as if the mere idea of appealing to a group of people who love basketball but aren't inner-city blacks is "selling out" or something.
There's another problem in basketball. I can't think of another sport where a player can put up tremendous superstar-caliber statistics while absolutely destroying his own team. The official statistics of the NBA do a poor job of capturing what it takes to win games. The pass that leads to the pass that leads to the assist? Nothing. The screen that gets someone else a wide-open shot? Nothing. The defensive rotation that forces a pass that leads to a contested shot? Nothing.
In the NFL, there are no quarterbacks with a rating over 100 who suck. There aren't any 1500-yard rushers who suck, nor defensive ends with 13 sacks that kill their teams. There aren't any baseball players with a 1.000 OPS that hurt their team's offense. But in basketball, you can have a player that puts up 20 points and 8 assists a night, but who absolutely is destroying his own team's offense and preventing them from winning.
So how did the NBA get in this shape? Well, there never has been a time when the league really penetrated the national consciousness with its team game, per se. It's always been about individual achievement, or the success of major-market teams. When the Celtics won eight les in a row, Wilt was the league's big draw. Then the Knicks with their solid team game were popular, but that was more about being winners in New York than about fans' true love for the game. Once the Knicks and Lakers faded in the '70s, and the league became egalitarian, it almost folded.
The league's renaissance in the '80s was built again upon marketable individuals and success for the big-market teams, in this case the Lakers and Celtics. Then it was the marketing of Michael Jordan and the big-market Bulls that made the league soar. When he took two years off and the team-oriented Rockets were winning, ratings took an immediate nose-dive. Shaq and Kobe -- same thing -- marketable individuals in a major market.
So now the league is in a situation where their most dominant teams are in smaller markets, without highly marketable personalities. This flies in the face of 50 years of experience about what makes the league successful in appealing to a casual audience.
Look again at the NFL. Nobody has parity like the NFL. Teams routinely go from 6-10 one year to deep playoff runs the next. Baseball is moving more in that direction as well. The NBA? Well, they have parity in the sense that small-market teams can succeed, but right now there are probably 20 teams that have zero chance of any serious run next year. Why should fans in Portland or Orlando get excited? Even teams that will make the playoffs like Boston or Philadelphia don't really have a chance to do anything special. So where is the buzz going to come from?
Really the NBA has a ton of problems with their game, with the structure of their league, with their stats, with parity, with marketing, etc. that have a long legacy behind them. All the success they've ever had in their history is based upon marketing the charismatic individuals within the team game, and now that they can't do that, they're forced to sell something that the public never has wanted to buy -- the game itself.
To be bluntly honest, the way things are set up now, the league would be better off if the playing field weren't level, and there were a way to make sure that big-market teams were successful most of the time, like baseball in the 1990's. it would suck for Spurs fans, and it's not a great way to run a sports league, but that's the only model that's ever proven successful for the NBA.
Solid post.
And it will probably be easier for the NBA to create a big market superstar/success than for it to reinvigorate interest in the game in the non-coastal US, so that's probably the route they will go. It's sad.To be bluntly honest, the way things are set up now, the league would be better off if the playing field weren't level, and there were a way to make sure that big-market teams were successful most of the time, like baseball in the 1990's. it would suck for Spurs fans, and it's not a great way to run a sports league, but that's the only model that's ever proven successful for the NBA.
But as long as they still play basketball on the court, I'll be watching. As long as they don't the actual on-court game beyond recognition. All of the other stuff - the ESPN commentary/ ing, the game commentary, halftime, sports talk, commercials - is peripheral and can be ignored.
@ what I made bold
Also how does the Suns have 23 games shown and the Spurs 21? Thats ed up.
Extra Stout deserves a pair of Spurs for that post.
Because everyone wants to see the greatness of Kurt Thomas and Walter McCarty instead of Tim.
Well it's just the way it is. We should all be ready for LeBron and Kobe for years and years to come. The league wants it and therefore it's going to be that way.
The only solution for a die hard fan is to get the League Pass. I've had it for 2 seasons now and I'm going to continue this season.
What are you looking for in the way of "midwest marketing"? I'm curious... LeBron bailing hay?Not so the NBA. On the national level, they cater to the hip-hop crowd, the corporate types who buy season tickets, and that's it. Any attempt to branch out is half-hearted and hamfisted. The Midwestern hoops hotbed gets ignored.
You start keeping track of things like screens and defensive rotations, you'll have to fill up the stadium with statisticians and take away seats. They don't keep track of defensive rotations or outside containment in football, either.I can't think of another sport where a player can put up tremendous superstar-caliber statistics while absolutely destroying his own team. The official statistics of the NBA do a poor job of capturing what it takes to win games. The pass that leads to the pass that leads to the assist? Nothing. The screen that gets someone else a wide-open shot? Nothing. The defensive rotation that forces a pass that leads to a contested shot? Nothing.
There's no players in the NBA putting up 30 a game who suck either, their teams may suck and they may not win but that's more reflective of the game than the player, IMO.In the NFL, there are no quarterbacks with a rating over 100 who suck. There aren't any 1500-yard rushers who suck, nor defensive ends with 13 sacks that kill their teams.
Corey Dillon used to put up huge numbers for the Bengals, and they still never won a damn thing, for example.
Deveney hit it on the head - the league is still operating under the Michael Jordan marketing game plan. But just like there will never be another Jordan, there will never be another player that transcends the game worldwide like him.
James has that potential, but he has to win a couple of les to head down that road.
Like the article says, the league needs to do a better job of identifying which teams are likely to be there at the end of the season and promote them, instead of continuously trying to come up with "the next Jordan."
Exactly. True fans of the NBA will watch the game and their team for the sake of the game. Yes, teams like the Sixers suck ass.........but you'd be surprised how many people go to their games and still wear AI jerseys. Stat padding isn't the problem....it's the fact that the NBA has guys like Bill Walton and Hubie Brown as their commentators. To the average fan, who doesn't really care for basketball, when they tune into a game while flipping the channel, they don't want to listen to an 80 year old man commenting on the game or a sarcastic, has been basketball player who thinks he knows the game. Truth is, if you're not an avid basketball fan, players like Lebron James, Kobe, Shaq etc. is probably what would drive you to watch the game in the first place. The problem is, they're not always winning and consistent, so once the postseason comes around, as Dunleavy mentioned in his article, and they're not around, who's going to watch?
Seconded. Great post, Stout.
Another statistic was brought up during the season last year which shows just how uneven the playing field really is, and was only further demonstrated by the 2005 Finals.
In the past 26 years now and running, only 7 different teams have won championships.
The Lakers (8), the Celtics (3), the Pistons (3), the Sixers (1), the Rockets (2), the Bulls (6), and the Spurs (3).
Now one would think the Lakers would be the media's darling because of that staggering number of eight, but instead it's all about Kobe (and Shaq, even with him off the team)
As for everybody else, they're left behind so that the team can market 'new-age phenoms' like the Suns, Heat, and Cavs: Three teams that don't even have a single banner hanging.
But yeah, it's supposed to be all about the trophy. Maybe just to the players, because that's not how the league seems to market it.
Last edited by Dex; 08-09-2005 at 04:50 PM.
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