I have read nothing that would indicate the prospects for the National Basketball Association (NBA) playing this season are promising. My response? So.
To be perfectly fair and honest I have never been a big basketball fan to begin with. Like so many others I will watch a little when the playoffs come around. But you will sooner find me watching Justin Beiber than the NBA otherwise. It’s just not worth my time.
Why? The game experience has changed. This is not just the NBA, but all pro sports. It cost’s too much to attend a game. Free agency has turned every roster into a revolving door, where even the super stars move with the expiration of their current contract. And lastly, even figuring out what channel, what day, and what time your team plays has become a hassle.
When going to a game is too expensive; you say “Who?” when the starting lineup is announced; plus throw in the seemingly endless steams of pro athletes with some sort of legal problem, and you get less overall interest in the game. The NBA is not only not immune, but recent attendance figures bare me out. NBA attendance peaked during the 2006-7 season at an average per game attendance of 17,757. They have been under that each of the last 4 seasons, dipping to 17,150 during the 2009-10 season.
http://www.apbr.org/attendance.html While that is not a huge drop, the point is that player salaries keep going up and interest in their product isn’t. And now they decide to put no product at all on the market. Not smart.
The situation boils down to this. The NBA owners claim poverty. The NBA players say “No Way”. The NBA fans, who are already a bit fickle, are left out in the cold. {Larry Coon does a good job of explaining this in detail here: http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=coon_larry&page=NBAFinancials-110630 ) Unfortunately for the Owners and Players alike, the fans have their blinders off and can see what they have been missing.
What would that be, you ask? Well, for the general sports fan, there is NFL and college football. There is the NHL. If they are dead set on basketball; the college game puts a damn good product on the court for a much cheaper price. There are the high school sports. There is lacrosse and even roller derby. If you don’t want sports, how about a movie? There is live theater on many levels at every NBA city in America. The list goes on and on.
The point is there is a lot of competition for the entertainment dollar of your NBA fan. That already fickle fan is also worried about paying his bills, keeping or finding a job, and how to pay for Christmas. How much sympathy do you think he has for how this group of people fighting on how to divide up the 4.1 billion they generate in basketball revenue?
The NFL understood this. They may have canceled half the preseason, but they got there heads on straight in time to save their regular season. Major League Baseball gets it. The players union and the owners just signed a new collective bargaining agreement a few days ago. That happened without any kind of disruption at all.
The NBA is not the NFL where people were filling airwaves with their disgust at the prospect of no pro ball. You would hear about it on regular talk radio. Not with the NBA. Their fans are barely noticing. What they might be noticing is that they can deal without it. If that ends up being the case, then maybe they NBA owners and players alike will fine out what it’s like to divide up nothing.
I don’t care if that happens or not. They should.
To be perfectly fair and honest I have never been a big basketball fan to begin with. Like so many others I will watch a little when the playoffs come around. But you will sooner find me watching Justin Beiber than the NBA otherwise. It’s just not worth my time.
Why? The game experience has changed. This is not just the NBA, but all pro sports. It cost’s too much to attend a game. Free agency has turned every roster into a revolving door, where even the super stars move with the expiration of their current contract. And lastly, even figuring out what channel, what day, and what time your team plays has become a hassle.
When going to a game is too expensive; you say “Who?” when the starting lineup is announced; plus throw in the seemingly endless steams of pro athletes with some sort of legal problem, and you get less overall interest in the game. The NBA is not only not immune, but recent attendance figures bare me out. NBA attendance peaked during the 2006-7 season at an average per game attendance of 17,757. They have been under that each of the last 4 seasons, dipping to 17,150 during the 2009-10 season.
http://www.apbr.org/attendance.html While that is not a huge drop, the point is that player salaries keep going up and interest in their product isn’t. And now they decide to put no product at all on the market. Not smart.
The situation boils down to this. The NBA owners claim poverty. The NBA players say “No Way”. The NBA fans, who are already a bit fickle, are left out in the cold. {Larry Coon does a good job of explaining this in detail here: http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=coon_larry&page=NBAFinancials-110630 ) Unfortunately for the Owners and Players alike, the fans have their blinders off and can see what they have been missing.
What would that be, you ask? Well, for the general sports fan, there is NFL and college football. There is the NHL. If they are dead set on basketball; the college game puts a damn good product on the court for a much cheaper price. There are the high school sports. There is lacrosse and even roller derby. If you don’t want sports, how about a movie? There is live theater on many levels at every NBA city in America. The list goes on and on.
The point is there is a lot of competition for the entertainment dollar of your NBA fan. That already fickle fan is also worried about paying his bills, keeping or finding a job, and how to pay for Christmas. How much sympathy do you think he has for how this group of people fighting on how to divide up the 4.1 billion they generate in basketball revenue?
The NFL understood this. They may have canceled half the preseason, but they got there heads on straight in time to save their regular season. Major League Baseball gets it. The players union and the owners just signed a new collective bargaining agreement a few days ago. That happened without any kind of disruption at all.
The NBA is not the NFL where people were filling airwaves with their disgust at the prospect of no pro ball. You would hear about it on regular talk radio. Not with the NBA. Their fans are barely noticing. What they might be noticing is that they can deal without it. If that ends up being the case, then maybe they NBA owners and players alike will fine out what it’s like to divide up nothing.
I don’t care if that happens or not. They should.
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