You’ve heard plenty about it… the debate rages on whether this NBA postseason is the best ever. Well, there’s no cut-and-dried set of criteria to determine this. So, when it comes to figuring how successful a season is, I am inclined to fall back to the factors that best facilitate the growth of the brand and net income.
Since the process of elimination inherent in sports playoffs leads to the majority of fans not having any vested interest in the final, let’s take off our fan hats and sit in David Stern’s recliner ass print and look at the six factors most important to the NBA in its march toward the ideal postseason.
1. Play as many games as possible
In any sport’s playoff system, TV drives the bus. Piss and moan all you want, but there’s a reason the NBA Playoffs feel longer than JFK. It’s not going to change (also see: Bowl Championship Series, The). Even if it takes 3 months, every league wants every series to go 7 games, and have every one of those games on national TV. A Jazz-Raptors Finals? It doesn’t matter, if you get all 115 potential playoff games played (‘09: 74 so far with a max of 89). That’s because more games = more games on TV = more revenue. Tickets and merchandise factor in, but they don’t vary as much from year to year or have the impact of TV ratings. Higher ratings drive the up price of ad placement, and all of these things factor into the price of the all-important rights fee/agreement between league and network. Exhibit A: ESPN’s 15-year, $2.25 billion deal for the rights to SEC Football. Looks like the potentially lucrative SEC Network has 15 more years to develop its launch plan. You think coaches enjoy being mic’d up? TV drives the Playoffs. Period.
2. History lesson: legacy teams
These are teams whose fandom have been passed down through generations, and whose support is not bound by the constraints of geography (this is also why you want to punch people when your team plays the Cowboys, Steelers or Yankees). Last season’s Lakers vs. Celtics Finals, with over 30 NBA titles between them, was about as ideal as Rachel McAdams using my backyard to work on her tan.
3. Big market, big audience
These are constants year to year… Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago. The second-tier is Philly, Dallas, Houston, and the Bay Area. It’s a simple matter of population density. Eyeballs translate to TV ratings points. A cross-sport example: the NHL on NBC has struggled to net a rating over 1.0 as the league’s brand continues to recover from the ’04-’05 lockout. Last week, the Chicago Blackhawks and the Detroit Red Wings, two of the NHL’s Original Six teams, faced off in Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals. While the game was devoid of the league’s two household names (Crosby and Ovechkin), the game did an eye-popping 2.0 thanks to a 7.7 in Chicago and a 16.9 (!) in Detroit, a.k.a. Hockeytown USA (see #2).
4. Star power: showcase your assets
Yeah, this is an obvious bullet and could be listed higher, but superstars tend to gravitate toward big market teams. With Kobe vs. LeBron in their sights, the folks at the NBA offices probably feel like that guy who put $100 on the Tampa Bay Rays at 250-to-1 (note to Tampa fans: maybe STOP talking to the media UNTIL you actually WIN the wager?). The brass at the NBA’s 5th Avenue offices are a little more keen to the fact that, much like that 5-team NCAA football teaser, the dream can vanish in an instant. Yes, Superman and Melo are of Redeem Team recognizability, but what if LeBron hit his Friday night game-winner over Kobe instead… on a Sunday evening… on ABC… in the NBA Finals. At that point, if you’re the NBA’s VP of Marketing/Development you just color up, hit the cashier cage and just start calling Megan Fox until she either answers or threatens legal repercussions through her management. I mean, why not?
5. Tell a good story
Remember George Mason’s run? Of course you do. And you will. Same with Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl. That’s because good storytelling trumps all. The Bulls-Celtics first round series conjured visions of Warriors-Mavs in 2007. Mark Cuban vs. Kenyon Martin… sad, but this is how rivalries start and/or escalate. At its core, every postseason is nothing more than an unscripted story… and it helps if that story is better than the Red Shoe Diaries.
6. Put it on network television
While TNT has upgraded its NBA coverage over the years and grown the NBA on TNT brand substantially, your postseason still needs to be findable (ABC, NBC, or CBS) to the casual fan, especially now that NASA seems to be running my cable. Is there anything more humbling than moving to a new city and having to relearn all of the channels? If I get offered a seven-figure job that requires me to relocate, I am simply not doing it unless I get a personal assistant to run my remote for the first 6 months.
Is ‘09 the best postseson ever? We’ll see. The NBA, ABC, ESPN and TNT hope so. So Tampa, don’t go calling your local media affiliate just yet and wrecking it for all of us.
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