Read the opposing argument from Sports Geek.
Right now is a very important time for the NBA. The league stands at the brink of a make or break scenario that holds huge implications for the league. The NBA is suffering significant financial losses while at the same time staring down a lockout for the 2011 season. Right now the NBA is peaking in terms of popularity and the NFL is teetering on the verge of a hugely unpopular work stoppage. The NBA could see major gains in its fan base if it ends up being the only show in town… or it could drive away fans in droves if multi-million dollar athletes decide to sit out during the biggest economic recession of our time.
With the NBA figuring to experience major losses this season, it appears that commissioner David Stern and company are looking at any and every option to stay profitable, including cutting franchises. While on the surface this looks like a good first step towards getting into the black it appears the commish isn’t looking at the long term big picture.
So Long Small Market Teams, Basketball Is Big Business
The NBA is one of the few professional sports that is somewhat small market friendly. The NBA currently has franchises in cities like Memphis, Oklahoma City, Sacramento, and Charlotte. These are certainly large cities but they are by no means the sprawling metropolises of most big sports cities (i.e. Boston, New York, L.A.). In the grand scheme of things the sport might not implode if the Grizzlies or Thunder weren’t apart of the 2011 season, but it certainly would be a major loss to the fans.
Right now then NBA has cracked markets that other sports franchises have not, and that is certainly a public relations booster for them. But if the small market teams get the axe because the league is in the red, it will be a huge step back for a sport that is more inclusive than most. Obviously the NBA is a business and it can only afford to operate at a loss for so long, but pulling the rug out from under a franchise, no matter how small, is sure to make enemies of a sport.
For instance, when the Hornets abandoned Charlotte there was a lot of ill will toward professional basketball amongst the people of the Queen City. Sure all wounds heal with time, and slowly but surely the city is embracing the Bobcats, but that has been a slow and bumpy journey at best. North Carolina was college basketball country to begin with, and a pro team was a risky venture. Then when the people of Charlotte felt they got burned by the NBA it made for awkward bedfellows moving forward with future business ventures. The city opposed funding for a new coliseum for the Bobcats and attendance generally struggled in comparison with the Carolina Panthers. I do not suggest every market would turn against basketball for football and baseball, but it is a plausible result. One that the NBA cannot afford.
Cutting Teams Should Be A Last Resort Not A First Option
Cutting teams is a desperation move for which the league must be fully prepared. The fallout from such an unpopular decision is sure to have ramifications for years to come. When a team or a league abandons a fan base, they turn fans off for years to come. That is not something the NBA, or any sport, can afford.
Popularity is 90 percent perception and 10 percent substance. While that is not a mathematical law, it is a fair enough assessment of the way the world often sees sports. That is not to say a sport’s popularity is not influenced by the excitement of the action on the court or on the field, but rather that a sport’s popularity is influenced by things other than the successes of its best players, high profile teams, or biggest events.
Popularity is often a matter of how the fans perceive they are being treated. If a sport entertains fans, gives them great value, and does not betray their trust, it earns loyalty. But that loyalty can be lost.
For instance, when baseball went on strike, and then the curtain was torn down on the steroid era, the popularity of the sport was dealt a black eye, one that the sport is arguably still not over the hump from today. One of the most damaging legacies of those fiascoes was quite simply that the fans felt abused. Baseball fans are an intensely loyal bunch, and the league allowed the fans trust to be betrayed by performance enhancing drugs and the greed of the players union. Basketball is not above being pulled down by similar circumstances and culling a franchise, no matter how big or how small is public relations suicide.
Of course basketball has to make money, but cutting franchises is not the answer. Calling it league “contraction” does not change the fact that it is telling millions (yes, literally millions) of fans that they were not important enough to continue to entertain. The league must find another way or face the backlash of a scorned public that finds another way to spend its money than supporting a game that doesn’t support them back.
The players and teams in the NBA are forcing contraction without an actual organization being contracted. Either the NBA will have to contract a few teams, or the new CBA will have to prevent the type of collusion that has be going on. http://www.tchuddle.com/2011/02/is-the-nba-forcing-contraction/