Been saying for over a year now that the NBA should contract the bulls and put a real professional franchise in Chicago. It’s the right business decision. Glad to see it’s catching on
Looking at the state of professional sports teams in Chicago should lead most, if not all people to believe that Chicago need not add any more failing organization to its collection. The Bulls are bad. The Bears are bad. The White Sox are bad. The Blackhawks are bad. The Cubs are meh at best. Why in Sam hell would Chicago add ANOTHER team?!
Outside of the media market opportunities it’s hard to sell Chicago at this point. The taxes in Illinois are TERRIBLE. The bears are struggling to get their stadium situation sorted out. Jerry wants a new stadium for the White Sucks. I mean there are places where a new team could play, but I just don’t see why anybody would want to start up another franchise in Chicago right now.
The teams are doing fine financially, it's the leagues that suffer because they subsidize the team. That is what I'm trying to address as a completely serious, not facetious at all, concern
The author's article was "tongue in cheek." Reinsdorf has said he'd pay the luxury tax once he had a team of players that deserved that level of pay. They have to do a better job of drafting and developing players.
The NBA's problems start in the commissioner's office. Why does he make the big bucks? High school teams require their players to be able to dribble ... not so in the NBA. Not only is nothing called, they're allowed the Euro-Step. The lunatics are running the asylum.
Agreed, the commissioner needs to step in. Businessmen are taught to maximize revenues not just lower expenses, yet the Chicago market gets an owner who fails to do this for decades? And you know Young executives are brought up to make trades. Yet the Bulls executive can't. And worse he euro-negotiates.
And yet the Bulls practically fill their stadium for every game and are among the league’s attendance leaders. But agreed, they need a few good moves and another pick or two. They're working on it.
I think the most plausible explanation is that it's nothing idiosyncratic about the NBA at all. Ratings for pretty much everything legacy that isn't the NFL are depressed. So a good explanation would probably have to cover all that shit as well.
I obviously get this post's motivation for expansion... but the NBA's really confuses me. Every CBA negotiation in my lifetime featured at least one proclamation by the NBA that like 20 of the 30 teams aren't profitable. Why would they think the marginal teams will be better than those 20 profit sink holes?
I also wonder if expansion serves the tastes of Adam Silver personally, and what I guess I'll call NBA nerds (::raises hand::) broadly, but neglects the tastes of marginal fans. Like, I don't think marginal fans like parity? And I'm not sure NBA podcasters want to hear this, but I think marginal NBA fans love dynasties. And would basically like to see LeBron vs Steph in the finals till the sun explodes.
I also think the NBA seems to have been trying to dampen player movement? This works for NBA nerds (::raises hand::) who lament that people care more about trade rumors than the actual game. But... marginal fans really like player movement? I think that's true.
But whatever. More you could say about what could nudge the needle of NBA popularity. I still go back to the first point I made. That's probably the issue. The Bulls issue probably requires a kind of wetwork solution. I bet the NBA Cup sponsor knows plenty of those guys, so it's probably a phone call or two away, Adam.
Nielson Ratings are an outdated measure of fan engagement in my opinion. One reason is that it neglects the growth of and revenue stream from the global audience. Second reason, somewhat related, is the popularity and revenue of streaming games. NBA Season Pass subscriptions have grown tremendously. Also, a lot of people like me (a Bulls fan in Massachusetts) can stream their home team out-of-market. This consumer market was non-existent to negligible not long ago. This is why there's no "ratings crisis" in the eyes of Adam Silver and other NBA owners and executives. Just my take.
Man, I am watching this San Antonio/Knicks game and it is freakin' dire. The basketball is fine enough but, good god, there are a lot of commercials. I know you can point to literally any other American sport and say it is the same, but this is not true for soccer or rugby. I cannot watch a freakin' pfizer commercial that lasts a full two minutes in the middle of a match. Life is too short.
Yes, very much so. Every time I switch back to American sports I can't do it.
I think the amount of time dedicated to stoppage is up, but I also think that the cadence of commercials has changed and that has a lot to do with it. Somehow the cheesier ads of the 90's matched the flow of the game better than these dire pharmaceutical ads. Who wants to be reminded that this is a dying nation during a timeout?
I know that the NBA will never do anything "good" but if they matched the European style with fewer games and more reasonable ad breaks, all of this hand-wringing would go away pretty quickly. A basketball team in a European league essentially spends all week preparing for their next opponent. The importance of individual games are much higher so there are no nights off and a lot higher frequency for "good wins" in the regular season. Even if you don't win a trophy you can still point to some real successes and great nights, This just gets lost if you are playing 82 games and spend the first half of the season working yourself into shape for the playoffs.
The problem is that the notion that Adam Silver is in any way independent or responsible for the long-term integrity of the game is largely a coping mechanism. He works for the owners. The NBA as an organization works for them. We can have these conversations all we want but no one with any power is incentivized to think in the long term. And a more reasonable schedule goes directly against the short-term profits of both the players and the owners.
This is why I rarely ever watch sports live anymore. I usually start them far enough behind that I'm able to catch up by the end of the game by fast forwarding through the commercials.
Been saying for over a year now that the NBA should contract the bulls and put a real professional franchise in Chicago. It’s the right business decision. Glad to see it’s catching on
Looking at the state of professional sports teams in Chicago should lead most, if not all people to believe that Chicago need not add any more failing organization to its collection. The Bulls are bad. The Bears are bad. The White Sox are bad. The Blackhawks are bad. The Cubs are meh at best. Why in Sam hell would Chicago add ANOTHER team?!
Outside of the media market opportunities it’s hard to sell Chicago at this point. The taxes in Illinois are TERRIBLE. The bears are struggling to get their stadium situation sorted out. Jerry wants a new stadium for the White Sucks. I mean there are places where a new team could play, but I just don’t see why anybody would want to start up another franchise in Chicago right now.
The teams are doing fine financially, it's the leagues that suffer because they subsidize the team. That is what I'm trying to address as a completely serious, not facetious at all, concern
The author's article was "tongue in cheek." Reinsdorf has said he'd pay the luxury tax once he had a team of players that deserved that level of pay. They have to do a better job of drafting and developing players.
The NBA's problems start in the commissioner's office. Why does he make the big bucks? High school teams require their players to be able to dribble ... not so in the NBA. Not only is nothing called, they're allowed the Euro-Step. The lunatics are running the asylum.
Agreed, the commissioner needs to step in. Businessmen are taught to maximize revenues not just lower expenses, yet the Chicago market gets an owner who fails to do this for decades? And you know Young executives are brought up to make trades. Yet the Bulls executive can't. And worse he euro-negotiates.
And yet the Bulls practically fill their stadium for every game and are among the league’s attendance leaders. But agreed, they need a few good moves and another pick or two. They're working on it.
Brutal. But can't argue with it.
I think the most plausible explanation is that it's nothing idiosyncratic about the NBA at all. Ratings for pretty much everything legacy that isn't the NFL are depressed. So a good explanation would probably have to cover all that shit as well.
I obviously get this post's motivation for expansion... but the NBA's really confuses me. Every CBA negotiation in my lifetime featured at least one proclamation by the NBA that like 20 of the 30 teams aren't profitable. Why would they think the marginal teams will be better than those 20 profit sink holes?
I also wonder if expansion serves the tastes of Adam Silver personally, and what I guess I'll call NBA nerds (::raises hand::) broadly, but neglects the tastes of marginal fans. Like, I don't think marginal fans like parity? And I'm not sure NBA podcasters want to hear this, but I think marginal NBA fans love dynasties. And would basically like to see LeBron vs Steph in the finals till the sun explodes.
I also think the NBA seems to have been trying to dampen player movement? This works for NBA nerds (::raises hand::) who lament that people care more about trade rumors than the actual game. But... marginal fans really like player movement? I think that's true.
But whatever. More you could say about what could nudge the needle of NBA popularity. I still go back to the first point I made. That's probably the issue. The Bulls issue probably requires a kind of wetwork solution. I bet the NBA Cup sponsor knows plenty of those guys, so it's probably a phone call or two away, Adam.
Is Christian Slater available?
Ok look, I just think if the NBA is going to act this much like an American university, then they should also get some kind of tax-exempt status.
Nielson Ratings are an outdated measure of fan engagement in my opinion. One reason is that it neglects the growth of and revenue stream from the global audience. Second reason, somewhat related, is the popularity and revenue of streaming games. NBA Season Pass subscriptions have grown tremendously. Also, a lot of people like me (a Bulls fan in Massachusetts) can stream their home team out-of-market. This consumer market was non-existent to negligible not long ago. This is why there's no "ratings crisis" in the eyes of Adam Silver and other NBA owners and executives. Just my take.
Man, I am watching this San Antonio/Knicks game and it is freakin' dire. The basketball is fine enough but, good god, there are a lot of commercials. I know you can point to literally any other American sport and say it is the same, but this is not true for soccer or rugby. I cannot watch a freakin' pfizer commercial that lasts a full two minutes in the middle of a match. Life is too short.
Yes, very much so. Every time I switch back to American sports I can't do it.
I think the amount of time dedicated to stoppage is up, but I also think that the cadence of commercials has changed and that has a lot to do with it. Somehow the cheesier ads of the 90's matched the flow of the game better than these dire pharmaceutical ads. Who wants to be reminded that this is a dying nation during a timeout?
I know that the NBA will never do anything "good" but if they matched the European style with fewer games and more reasonable ad breaks, all of this hand-wringing would go away pretty quickly. A basketball team in a European league essentially spends all week preparing for their next opponent. The importance of individual games are much higher so there are no nights off and a lot higher frequency for "good wins" in the regular season. Even if you don't win a trophy you can still point to some real successes and great nights, This just gets lost if you are playing 82 games and spend the first half of the season working yourself into shape for the playoffs.
The problem is that the notion that Adam Silver is in any way independent or responsible for the long-term integrity of the game is largely a coping mechanism. He works for the owners. The NBA as an organization works for them. We can have these conversations all we want but no one with any power is incentivized to think in the long term. And a more reasonable schedule goes directly against the short-term profits of both the players and the owners.
This is why I rarely ever watch sports live anymore. I usually start them far enough behind that I'm able to catch up by the end of the game by fast forwarding through the commercials.
shoulda watched the Disney+ cartoon broadcast, it was ad free! And Donald Duck doing Mikal Bridges moves, really wild stuff
Hawks game thread
https://open.substack.com/chat/posts/36e0c297-56b7-487a-b6d6-a2a1b63f4e00?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=2bo