Sports Media Watch presents the 5 biggest NBA-related stories of the past 10 years.
#5: Move to ESPN/ABC, Turner
The end of the NBA as a broadcast television property began in the fall of 2001, and was completed in January of the following year. After 12 seasons of a hefty presence on broadcast television (60 games on NBC seems unheard of now), the NBA was headed primarily to cable.
The league?s regular season presence on broadcast would be sliced in half, from over 30 games on NBC to just 15 on newcomer ABC. In the playoffs, ABC was set to air a minimum of just 5 games per season (now 8 under the current contract). To put that in perspective, NBC often aired 6 playoff games on one weekend alone.
The All Star Game and the Conference Finals ? two of the league?s marquee events ? would move from broadcast to cable. Only the NBA Finals maintained its previous level of broadcast exposure.
NBA Commissioner David Stern initially said that the cable-heavy television deal would result in ?a more concentrated audience and a higher rating? (Sports Business Daily, 1/23/02). Stern: ?The reduced number [of network telecasts] was at our request. ? The tripleheaders [on NBC] didn’t work out as well as we would have liked. We’ll get a higher audience for [ABC’s] single game” (USA Today, 1/22/02).
#4: Declining ratings
The NBA?s decline in ratings has been a hot topic seemingly every year of the decade, but was hastened ? if not worsened ? by the league?s shift to cable in ?02.
Ratings for NBA games started to fall off during the 1999 Conference Finals (the ?99 regular season and the first part of the playoffs held generally steady from the previous year). By the 1999-00 season, the league?s ratings had begun dropping steadily.
Regular season ratings on broadcast declined for 12 straight years, from 1995-96 to 2006-07. On at least three occasions this decade, the NBA has drawn its lowest rating ever on broadcast television (the most recent coming in 2007, for a Suns/Kings game on ABC).
More importantly, ratings for the NBA Finals fell dramatically ? hitting a 21-year low in ?02 and setting record-lows in ?03 and ?07. Since 2002, when the NBA moved from NBC to ABC, the NBA Finals have averaged a single-digit rating six times (2003, 2005-09). By comparison, the Finals never averaged a single-digit rating on NBC.
During the 2000s, the NBA Finals averaged approximately 14.4 million viewers, shedding 8 million viewers from the Jordan-fueled 1990s (appx. 22.4 mil).
While the new television deal has resulted in low ratings on broadcast, cable television partners TNT and ESPN have drawn record numbers. The 5 most-viewed NBA games ever on cable television have taken place during the 2000s, with 4 of the games airing in 2009 alone. In 2008-09, TNT had its most-viewed regular season since 1995-96 ? during the NBA?s Michael Jordan-fueled golden age. Meanwhile, the 5 most-viewed basketball games in ESPN history are all NBA games.
And it should be pointed out that ? while ABC?s ratings have never been able to match NBC?s, either in the regular season or in the playoffs ? regular season ratings on the network have improved each of the past two seasons. In 2007-08 and 2008-09, the NBA on ABC outrated the MLB Game of the Week on FOX.
#3: Image problem
The NBA?s image problem dates back decades. It was talked about during the 1990s ? especially during Michael Jordan?s two-year absence ? but the issue turned into a blazing inferno during the 2000s.
Throughout the decade, the perception of NBA players was overwhelmingly negative. ESPN?s Gary Thorne called the league the nation?s most ?expensive gang, if not the most dangerous? in 2004. Three years later, former baseball broadcaster and TV writer Ken Levine referred to NBA players as ?mean, arrogant, scary looking, tattooed, prison inmates,? who were ?[n]ot exactly All-American role models unless you’re a gang member or skinhead? (Huffington Post, 2/17/07).
Even before the 2004 Pacers/Pistons brawl, NBA-related altercations were a major story. In 2002, a preseason brawl between the Lakers and Kings made CNN?s American Morning. Since the Pacers/Pistons brawl, NBA fights have become an event ? in a way that fights in Major League Baseball and the NHL have never been. A fight between the Knicks and Nuggets in ?06 ? no worse than a garden variety baseball or hockey brawl ? was talked about in-depth for days on NBC Nightly News, ABC?s World News Tonight and Good Morning America.
Even in situations where no NBA player was involved in wrongdoing, the league was painted negatively. During the 2007 NBA All Star Weekend in Las Vegas, there were several reports of violence ? including a now-infamous incident involving the NFL?s Adam Jones. But it was the NBA and its players that took the brunt of criticism, despite no player being involved in any illegal activity. As Mark Cuban put it, ?I have idiots e-mailing saying the [NBA] is at blame for some incidents in Vegas because we can?t keep our players like Pacman Jones under control? (New York Times, 2/23/07).
#2: Tim Donaghy
As the NBA?s negative image subsided towards the end of the decade, the Tim Donaghy scandal thrust the league into another tailspin.
The Donaghy issue itself cannot be overstated. The fact that Tim Donaghy bet on NBA games he officiated is arguably the worst thing that has happened to a sports league in the 2000s. Where the scandal does begin to get overstated is with the speculation surrounding how many other referees were involved, if any, or whether the league purposefully affects games.
The primary fear after Donaghy?s crimes came to light was that other referees were involved. However, Donaghy said himself in a 2009 interview with ESPN that he could not say that other referees bet on games. Donaghy?s revelations that referees have biases against certain players were not damning, but common knowledge.
Donaghy has accused the NBA and its officials of conspiring to extend playoff series for ratings and revenue. However, the evidence does not back that up. Over the past 21 years, the NBA has had two Game 7s in the NBA Finals (one this decade). Meanwhile, Major League Baseball has had four Game 7s in the World Series (two this decade), and the NHL has had six in the Stanley Cup Finals (five this decade).
Since 2002, the NBA has had just one Game 7 in the Conference Finals (Pistons/Heat in ?05). In that same span, baseball’s League Championship Series has had seven Game 7s, and the NHL Conference Finals has had three.
In other words, if the NBA is rigging results to extend series, then it is not doing a very good job. Other Donaghy claims have been debunked as well, but he continues to hold significant credibility with NBA fans.
The NBA?s personnel do not help the league’s case. Players, coaches and local broadcasters complain about just about every call, and fans of every team — even the Lakers and Celtics — seem to believe the league is biased against them. Case in point, ESPN’s Bill Simmons recently complained about the Celtics? loss to the 76ers (just the team?s 5th loss in their first 25 games), essentially accusing referee Bill Kennedy of giving the game to the 76ers. Simmons: ?Donaghy went 80 percent because of situations like the one you gave us tonight in Boston. The truth hurts? (Twitter, 12/18/09).
#1: The sky is falling
The biggest story in the NBA over the past 10 years has much to do with the other items on this list. Since 2000 (and really, since 1994, when Sports Illustrated put out its infamous ?Why the NHL?s hot and the NBA?s not? cover), the NBA has been perceived to be on the edge of collapse.
If one problem went away (the ?thug? issue seems to have temporarily died down), then another rose to the forefront (the league is rigged). Everything was a sign that the league was in decay, from TNT promoting the NBA Finals on ABC (one writer called this something ?you often see from media outlets covering struggling start-up leagues?), to players not smiling before games (the players in a Rookie/Sophomore game were blasted for this in an ?07 Broadcasting & Cable article).
With all of the NBA?s problems over the past 10 years, one would imagine that the league would be in terrible shape. After all, the players are criminals, the referees manipulate results and nobody?s watching. The league should be on its last legs.
That is, unless the league?s problems have been grossly overstated ? not just by critics, but by supporters as well.
After all, the NBA?s decline in television ratings is hardly unique. Like the NBA Finals, the World Series also shed 8 million viewers during the 2000s (from 27.3 million in the 1990s to 19.3 million during the 2000s), and very few have argued that Major League Baseball is in need of a savior ? in the way that Vince Carter, LeBron James and Greg Oden were viewed as much-needed saviors of the NBA.
Despite the ballyhooed image problem, the NBA has far fewer fights than Major League Baseball and the NHL. And, though this is probably jinxing the league, when the was the last time the NBA had to deal with a walking PR disaster like the NFL?s Michael Vick, Adam Jones or Plaxico Burress?
And while the Donaghy situation (as has been said before) is legitimately damaging, there is very little substance to his claims about other referees, other than rumor and innuendo.
Overall, the 2000s brought much hand-wringing in regards to the NBA. Everything was a problem ? the players, the officiating, the ratings, the quality of play, the new ball, the dress code, the Sonics moving, just to name a few. Other sports have had similar issues ? baseball (steroids, the Expos fiasco, umpiring controversies) and the NFL (an image problem that should by all rights be worse than the NBA?s) ? and have largely avoided the sky-is-falling mentality surrounding the NBA.
