The Big Three Sports
Ravens was quoted in Lowry’s article as saying about the teams owners, “We are 32 fat-cat Republicans who vote socialist” (2). In case that the implications of this comment are unclear, he means that the owners are Republican in nature in that they are in the business of looking out for the wealthy and perpetuating that wealth, but when it comes to their job as owners, they vote socialist so that the source of their wealth can remain healthy and equal for all.
Sports are a business and in business labor disputes are bound to happen, but with good negotiations, as exhibited most notably by the NFL/NFLPA, respectably by the NBA/NBPA and increasingly improved by the MLB/MLBPA, good player/management relations can be sustained, ensuring the overall health of the business.
For the next section, since they often coincide, I will be combining the economic state of the three sports with the public relations state as it applies to television ratings and in general.
First, I will discuss the economic state/pr state of the NBA. The best way to describe the economic state of the NBA is improving. From information taken from the SportsLine.com web-site article by Rick Horrow, the NBA is taking extensive steps to ensure its economic stability and productiveness. The article states that the NBA accumulated over 2.85 billion dollars in revenue in 2000 and was projected to make 3.8 billion dollars in revenue a year before 2005 (Horrow 1). All in all, the NBA is on a long-term plan meaning that no immediate gains of significant proportions can be expected, but gradual ones are assured.
In terms of the public relations state of the NBA, much like the economic state, can also be called a long-term plan. In the 2001 season when the Lakers repeated their title, television ratings were at an all time high for a game 5 in the history of the NBA. According to the espn.go.com web site, ratings were 7 percent higher that the previous year and 2 percent higher than the year before that. However, in the Lakers attempt at a third consecutive NBA title in 2002, ratings dropped 26 percent from the game three the year before (www.espn.go.com).
In the bidding wars for the NBA television rights, NBC got outbid of their 1.3 billion dollar offer by the ABC and ESPN partnership and their estimated 1.5billion dollar offer. According to Howard Fendrich of the Associated Press in an article on globaltechnology.com, NBC has lost near 300 million dollars over the final two years of their NBA deal, but still have remained at the top in terms of ratings (Fendrich).
As for the public’s perception, die hard fans persist but the casual fans are beginning to fizzle out as superstars like Michael Jordan say their final good-byes and others like Vince Carter succumb to injury frequently. The lack of excitement, the low scores and the relatively unexciting play of most of the teams has lead to a huge decrease in popularity and as B. Goldberg states on an NBA [next page]