The NFL has had to deal with one of its most well-known stars pleading guilty to gruesome dogfighting charges, and is currently dealing with the possibility that its most successful team has been cheating. Baseball is dealing with a steroids problem that is growing deeper with each new revelation, and an all-time home run king who most sports fans believe took performance enhancing drugs. The Tour de France dealt with widespread doping allegations, while men’s tennis dealt with the threat that one of its players was involved in a match-fixing scandal.
And perhaps none of those sports have had a worse summer than the NBA.
To start, consider the ugly, lackluster NBA Finals. The San Antonio Spurs and Cleveland Cavaliers met in a quick, horribly played series that set a brand new record low rating for the Finals on television. The four-game sweep averaged 6.2% of television households, worse than the previous record, 6.5, set in 2003.
The Tim Donaghy scandal that broke in late-July may have done irreparable damage to the league, or it may have had no effect at all. It is too early to gauge what effect the former referee, who gambled on games he officiated, will have on interest in the league. While season ticket renewals are at their highest level since 2000-01, a full third of NBA fans polled in July say that they are less interested in the league as a result.
The league’s second-most prominent franchise, the New York Knicks, is embroiled in an ugly sexual harassment suit, in which head coach Isiah Thomas is the defendant. The dirty laundry of Thomas, and even star Stephon Marbury, is now becoming fodder for the New York tabloids. The case looks to grow uglier and more damaging as it continues.
But all of those off the court issues, from the poor television ratings, to the gambling scandal, to the sordid sexual harrassment suit for the Knicks, was tempered somewhat by the prospect of positive developments on the court. The trade of Kevin Garnett to the Boston Celtics, and most importantly, the arrival of newcomers Kevin Durant and Greg Oden, was supposed to lift the league to a new era.
Not so much.
The latest blow to the NBA is the news that #1 overall pick Greg Oden will likely miss the entire 2007-08 regular season. Oden, who was plagued by injury in college and during the 2007 NBA Summer League, had microfracture surgery on his right knee — the same surgery that shelved Phoenix Suns star Amare Stoudemire for the entire 2005-06 season — and at the very least is out until March.
What does this mean? The NBA loses a potential star, and loses — temporarily at least — a Portland market that was primed for revitalization. Additionally, the NBA now has on its hands terrible ratings draws on both Opening Night and Christmas night. The Blazers are scheduled to open on the road against the Spurs on TNT on Opening Night, and are slated to host the Sonics on ESPN Christmas Day. Is it unprecedented for the NBA to move games to different dates in the interests of television. Portland will also make several appearances on TNT. The network does not have the luxury of flexible scheduling, meaning it will be featuring a moribund, small-market Blazers club for several dates throughout the season.
While the Kevin Garnett-led Celtics should be good for some renewed interest, the NBA has just lost one of its most compelling storylines for the upcoming season. And in an summer of record low ratings, one devastating scandal, and another potentially humiliating scandal, the last thing this league needed was to lose one of its on-court draws.
