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CLEVELAND—David Stern is known for a tendency to
overreact when it comes to enforcing rules and meting
out discipline. Yet, he can’t see that his sport has
been spiraling into the abyss of irrelevance for nearly
a decade.
TV
ratings for the NBA Finals are dismal, and so are the
games. Why? A lot of reasons. But the one the league has
the power to solve is the fact that once again, the two
best teams aren’t playing for the championship.
It’s not
an aberration. It’s been going on since Michael Jordan
retired from the Bulls after the 1997-’98 season, when
the Spurs began the run of dominance that will soon
extend to four championships in nine years.
No one
is saying the league should be held to Jordan’s gold
standard so long after he won his sixth and final title.
Neither am I so naïve as to think that Nielsen ratings
should be the only factor in judging the prosperity of a
sport. I’ve never lived in a Nielsen home and have never
known anyone who has, which puts me in the same company
as NBA Players Association president Billy Hunter.
“I don’t
think they come to the ’hood,” Hunter said Wednesday. “I
live in Harlem. There’s about a million black folk up
there, and I don’t know anybody’s house with a Nielsen
ticker.”
The
answer won’t come from hoping the teams in the big
markets, especially New York, get back among the elite.
That’s archaic thinking. Nor will it come from the “next
Jordan,” because the supposed “next Jordan” is here at
the Finals and he didn’t do diddly squat for the
ratings—not to mention the quality or entertainment
value of the games.
The
answer makes too much sense for the NBA to ever adopt
it. I can’t take credit for it, because ESPN.com
numbers-cruncher John Hollinger was the first to propose
this plan for ending the gross disparity between the
West and East that keeps giving us noncompetitive
Finals.
You rank
the playoff teams 1-8 in each conference, just as they
do now. Then, you cross-match the playoff games: No. 1
in the West plays No. 8 in the East, No. 2 in the East
plays No. 7 in the West, etc.
If a
team from the East is good enough to get to the Finals,
more power to them. If not, don’t waste our time.
Travel
issues could be minimized, to a degree, with a 2-3-2
format in all rounds. This year, we would’ve gotten such
intriguing first-round matchups as Lakers-Cavs (Kobe vs.
LeBron) and Heat-Rockets (Shaq vs. Yao). The possibility
would’ve existed for Dallas-Phoenix or Dallas-San
Antonio in the Finals. Either one would’ve been better
than this.
The Cavs
and Spurs would’ve played in the second round, if at
all.
“I
wonder if they could just put it in a computer and say,
‘I don’t care if you’re in the West or the East, the top
12 teams or 16 teams just go at it,”’ the Spurs’ Robert
Horry said. “That would be kind of interesting.”
Derek
Fisher of the Jazz, who won three straight titles with
Horry in LA, said, “It’s the people that watch our game
and support our game that kind of give us the vehicle to
do what we do. So if we aren’t doing things that are
mindful of what kind of product we’re putting out on the
floor … we’re doing a disservice to us and them, too.”
Stern
should be listening. So should Hunter, whose players are
paid according to how much money the league brings in.
The dollars are shrinking along with the TV ratings.
Stern
has set a deadline of June 21 to hammer out a new
broadcast rights deal with ABC, ESPN and TNT. That
would’ve been Game Seven of the Finals if it were a real
series.
“Notwithstanding the fact that I’m not invited into
those discussions, I have to be concerned about the
overall economic viability of the league,” Hunter said.
“I have to be concerned about the bottom line.”
The days
of record TV ratings for every sport other than the NFL
are over. But the NBA should at least give fans the best
it has to offer at its showcase event. That hasn’t
happened in the Finals for most of the last decade. In
my ’hood, they call that a trend. |
