December 10, 2008
Obama, Basketball and the Recession
By Steven StarkThis is part of a series about how hard economic times often force sports to make creative changes that end up improving the game to bring in more revenue. (For purposes of speculation, we’re assuming no labor or contract objections from networks or others that, admittedly, could well arise.) This week? Basketball.
Reforming sports isn’t at the top of any new president’s agenda. But our chief executives do sometimes end up playing key roles in the evolution of our athletics. President Theodore Roosevelt probably saved football by calling in the heads of the nation’s leading footballing universities and telling them to make the game safer or face a ban. Sometimes our leaders just set an example. Golf became more popular in the 1950’s because everyone knew Dwight Eisenhower loved to play (so much so that he left golf cleat marks all over the Oval Office).
In a way similar to Ike, Barack Obama (pickup aficionado extraordinaire) is likely to make basketball more fashionable, even as he surrounds himself with appointees such as James Jones, Eric Holder and Timothy Geithner – all known for their on the court prowess. It’s exquisitely good timing. Of all our national sports, basketball is the one poised to go international – and thus withstand any economic downturn far better than any of its counterparts.
Next to soccer, basketball is the world’s most popular game, with professional leagues scattered across the planet. Reflecting that state of affairs, around 20% of the players in the NBA are foreign born. Last year, the league opened up a subsidiary in China where it’s estimated 300 million people play basketball, seeking to emulate their hero, Yao Ming. The New York Times has reported that almost a third of the traffic to nba.com is to its Mandarin Chinese site and a world traveler will find kids wearing NBA memorabilia on six continents.
So far, NBA Commissioner David Stern has said that overseas expansion isn’t part of the league’s current plans. But a severe recession might convince him and others to think otherwise. For starters, the league’s all-star festivities could easily be moved to a venue in Europe to increase interest.
And after that? An expansion franchise is probably out of the question because of the travel time involved. But what about a European expansion division –composed of, say, six teams, with plans to place a similar division in Asia five years later? No league has added that many teams since the NHL doubled in size over 30 years ago. But it doesn’t take that many players to form a squad in this game. And the payoff from having TV contracts for an international league would be huge.
As to the players, would you rather play in Barcelona or Oklahoma City? Enough said.
Though it can’t go international, even college basketball has ways to expand its product to increase revenue in an economic downturn. For starters, the NCAA tournament could be expanded to include everybody -- a kind of American imitation of English soccer’s FA Cup, where the lowliest teams in the country compete in the same tournament as the Manchester Uniteds.
In truth, because of the prevalence of conference tournaments, the NCAA tourney almost has a kind of universal admission. But by making it official, the TV package would get more valuable – and every year, some Cinderella team appearing out of nowhere would captivate the nation.
Even the NCAA final four could be expanded by copying the College World Series and going to a best-of-three final or incorporating a double elimination format in the final rounds.
In tough times, the decks get reshuffled (which is why, by the way, FDR called his economic program “The New Deal.”) In the current pantheon of American sports, baseball and football are at the top and basketball is a decided third. Could Obama a severe recession, and international expansion change that? It’s not out of the question.
