I generally like Darren Rovell over at CNBC’s SportsBiz and today he has some thoughts on why the triumvirate of steam-rolling destruction that is the Cs, Lakers and Cavs is not gonna be a good thing for overall League-wide revenue. (via Fang’s Bites)
The dominance of these teams is actually the worst thing the league could have wished for. Why? Because the more teams you have at the .500 mark or better, the better off the league is in terms of convincing people to come out and watch a game or view it on television.
And as any with good argument in the Power Point world in which we live, he has a chart to prove it:
YEAR WINNING PCT OF ABOVE .500 TEAMS
2008-09 .662
2007-08 .632
2006-07 .604
2005-06 .639
2004-05 .604
2003-04 .598
2002-03 .598
2001-02 .595
2000-01 .606
Okay. That might not prove anything, but the logic makes since that very few people are gonna give a shit in March about a Bucks/Kings game. Of course, no one would have cared about that game anyway, but I think the point is that because so few teams have any shot to dethrone the Big Three, no one is going to care about a Bulls/Heat game either — at least not enough to show up and drop forty bucks on a ticket.
Or, in his own words:
I didn’t go back any further [than 2000-01 in that chart], but there’s a chance that, through the first quarter of the season, we’ve never had this type of disparity ever before. In this economy, I don’t think that’s a good thing.
And if you subscribe to downtrodden themes of last night’s 60 Minutes report that the mortgage crisis is only really about half over and the United States is in for a solid three- to four-year economic slowdown, Rovell’s views are certainly troublesome for those small market teams that are struggling this season.
So Kings, Pacers and Bobcats, we’re looking directly at you.
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