3 NBA playoff questions

Shit, it was only one time. You make it seem as if I have a blog or something.

And in case you haven't noticed BYH, there are a lot of people who watch(and love) the NBA. It's a new generation BYH.

 

Kids these days.

 

.....hate baseball

 

Back in my day ...

 

NBA Finals ratings, 2006: 8.5 rating
World Series ratings, 2006: 10.1 rating

Even the record low World Series ratings are higher than the NBA Finals.

And now that the Suns, Mavs and Warriors are all gone, your only hope for an improvement this year is the Cavs reaching the Finals.

 

I'm ignoring this.

 

That's all fine and dandy now.
Just wait and see my friend. Especially with all this steriod stuff.

P.S. I haven't checked the attendance records this year, but last season was the NBA's best EVER.

 

C'mon Chuck, you're better than that.

The NBA has been around for over 60 years. We all grew up watching it.

And of course there's a lot of people who love the NBA.

There's also a disturbing amount of people, like me, who have grown disinterested in the last 10 years. I don't mind, or even dislike the NBA, I just don't care that much anymore. For me, it's that the brand of basketball became stupefyingly boring for a period of time and hasn't recaptured my interest, but there are other reasons others have lost interest.

Baseball, and yes, even football (the NFL was at a low popular ebb post '82 strike) took similar hits in the 80s and 90s -- baseball most noticeably after the strike -- but both have stabilized and grown. Attendance for both sports is as high as its ever been. The NBA's announced numbers are fine, but it's misleading as they count tickets sold (and ... cough ... cook the shit out of the numbers anyway). The amount of no-shows at some NBA venues is flat-out embarassing.

The public continually turns to baseball despite simplistic opinions by naysayers that insist it is declining in popularity. They said it in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and now. Baseball always survives it.

 

And there aren't any MLB no shows? Come on Bubbler, be real. They put friggin' tarps on the seats. Who does that? Oh yeah, the WNBA.

You said something about how baseball continues to survive. Has baseball ever been hit with these problems? With the steriod problems and the "not enough kids playing the game" thing going on, you'd have to think that they're due for taking a dive.

 

When does football season start?

 

Jeez Chuck, go read a history book before you bring that weak shit.

Baseball has had every manner of problem since the dawn of the sport. Owners who owned more than one team and shifted players at a whim disturbing competitive balance at the turn of the century, game fixing, the '19 World Series Black Sox scandal, institutionalized racism, two World War's, the Depression, the dawn of television and its affect on baseball attendance, baseball losing its monopoly of the public sports imagination to the NFL and NBA after World War II, the fight over the reserve clause, the '81 strike, collusion, the '04 strike, poisonous labor relations in non-strike years, steroids. I'm sure I left several other things out.

You think steroids is going to kill the sport after all of that? It is minor compared to many of the others. As far as kids playing the game, there's plenty of kids playing here, in Latin America and the Far East to keep baseball thriving for years to come. That's a red herring argument.

And learn your sports terminology, tarps over the seats are not no-shows. No-shows are people/corporations (corporations are the driving force for a massive chunk of NBA ticket sales intended, but often not used, by their clients ... another reason the NBA has lost some the common fans ... the common fan can't afford to go and get a decent seat) who don't use tickets they bought.

And let's just say the NBA's attendance numbers are a shade dubious.

For crying out loud, according to the official Atlanta Hawks attendance figures, they didn't have a game where they had less than 10,000 this year! Anyone with half a brain knows that's total bullshit.

And even so, that tarp/no-show argument is ridiculous anyway. Baseball teams play in 40,000-seat stadiums. NBA teams play in 15,000-20,000 seat arenas. A NBA team would draw baseball-like numbers once in a blue moon -- for special stuff like if Jordan was in town or Shaq/Kobe when they were in L.A.

The Pistons and Sonics played in domes in the 80s, and other than the Pistons' final year in Pontiac when they were title contenders, attendance for both teams in those massive white elephants was less than desirable, and certainly less than your typical baseball game. There's a reason why both teams moved to typical NBA-sized arenas.