realize the vast majority of stars in the NBA are black while the biggest names in the NFL, for the most part, are quarterbacks. And quarterbacks are historically white.
But the most illuminating laboratory for the issue of race in the NBA takes us to Indianapolis, where a curious and ongoing experiment seems to be taking place: the Pacers can’t draw fans,despite having an elite team that plays in an elite arena in a city whose sleepiness is so well known it’s nicknamed Naptown.
It’s one of the great mysteries in sports. A team that took Miami to seven games in the Eastern Conference Finals playing the NBA’s best defense and leading the league in rebounding in the self-proclaimed sacred temple of hard-nosed basketball ranked twenty-fifth in attendance. They were outdrawn by the Timberwolves, Cavaliers, and Suns. Seriously, the
Suns
?
When the ownership group that successfully fought to keep the Kings in Sacramento were in the final stages of negotiations, it agreed to decline the NBA’s revenue-sharing money. Commonly known as the Ailing Team Fund, the revenue sharing is the NBA’s welfare fund, allowing small-money, small-market teams to benefit from the huge profits accumulated by their big-money, big-market brethren.
The decision of the Kings’ owners was followed by a truly astounding revelation. An economist at the University of California, Irvine, who studies the NBA, reported that just two teams in the league benefited from the Ailing Team Fund more than the Kings.
One of those teams was the Memphis Grizzlies.
The other was the Indiana Pacers.
On the surface, it seems outrageous. A perennial playoff team in a two-team pro market in the mythical capital of basketball can’t draw flies. In fact, just for fun I checked on Stubhub in the middle of the 2012–13 season for tickets to a Pacers home game against the Clippers. On the day of the game, I discovered I could buy a ticket to the game between two of the best teams in the league for $2.95. That’s less than the cost of most espresso drinks.
Here’s my take: the Pacers are still paying the price for the Malice in the Palace, an incident that took place in 2004 in Detroit.Not Indianapolis—Detroit. That night lingers in Indianapolis like a bad smell, even after nearly a decade and when the Pacers had a roster full of enigmatic players such as Ron Artest and Stephen Jackson.
It doesn’t matter that the current version of the Pacers bears no resemblance to that one. It doesn’t matter that the brawl happened nine years ago or that it was
a Pistons home game
. It doesn’t matter that Ron Artest is not only long gone but has a whole new name. Three of them, to be exact.
Let’s call this a case of residual racism. Not necessarily overt racism, but racism that drifted through the franchise like a virus in the arena’s circulation system. Many people swore off the NBA and the Pacers after the Malice in the Palace. We can see the lingering effects to this day, in the poor attendance and surprisingly bad business fortunes of one of the most entertaining, successful franchises in the NBA.
This metaphorical virus was contracted and spread by a very small number of black athletes. In the NBA, unlike any other professional American sport, the actions of a few speak loudly for all the players. They all get lumped together, no matter how unfair or downright stupid it might seem.
During roughly the same time span since the Malice at the Palace, the Indianapolis Colts had twenty-three arrests. Doesn’t matter—people still pay big money to fill Lucas Oil Stadium every time the Colts play. It didn’t hurt that their star of stars, Peyton Manning, was a white quarterback who looked like he could have lived down the block from a large majority of the season-ticket holders. The Colts, however, were in the upper echelon of NFL teams when it came to arrests during the 2000s. There’re no long-term repercussions, though. There aren’t even short-term
But the most illuminating laboratory for the issue of race in the NBA takes us to Indianapolis, where a curious and ongoing experiment seems to be taking place: the Pacers can’t draw fans,despite having an elite team that plays in an elite arena in a city whose sleepiness is so well known it’s nicknamed Naptown.
It’s one of the great mysteries in sports. A team that took Miami to seven games in the Eastern Conference Finals playing the NBA’s best defense and leading the league in rebounding in the self-proclaimed sacred temple of hard-nosed basketball ranked twenty-fifth in attendance. They were outdrawn by the Timberwolves, Cavaliers, and Suns. Seriously, the
Suns
?
When the ownership group that successfully fought to keep the Kings in Sacramento were in the final stages of negotiations, it agreed to decline the NBA’s revenue-sharing money. Commonly known as the Ailing Team Fund, the revenue sharing is the NBA’s welfare fund, allowing small-money, small-market teams to benefit from the huge profits accumulated by their big-money, big-market brethren.
The decision of the Kings’ owners was followed by a truly astounding revelation. An economist at the University of California, Irvine, who studies the NBA, reported that just two teams in the league benefited from the Ailing Team Fund more than the Kings.
One of those teams was the Memphis Grizzlies.
The other was the Indiana Pacers.
On the surface, it seems outrageous. A perennial playoff team in a two-team pro market in the mythical capital of basketball can’t draw flies. In fact, just for fun I checked on Stubhub in the middle of the 2012–13 season for tickets to a Pacers home game against the Clippers. On the day of the game, I discovered I could buy a ticket to the game between two of the best teams in the league for $2.95. That’s less than the cost of most espresso drinks.
Here’s my take: the Pacers are still paying the price for the Malice in the Palace, an incident that took place in 2004 in Detroit.Not Indianapolis—Detroit. That night lingers in Indianapolis like a bad smell, even after nearly a decade and when the Pacers had a roster full of enigmatic players such as Ron Artest and Stephen Jackson.
It doesn’t matter that the current version of the Pacers bears no resemblance to that one. It doesn’t matter that the brawl happened nine years ago or that it was
a Pistons home game
. It doesn’t matter that Ron Artest is not only long gone but has a whole new name. Three of them, to be exact.
Let’s call this a case of residual racism. Not necessarily overt racism, but racism that drifted through the franchise like a virus in the arena’s circulation system. Many people swore off the NBA and the Pacers after the Malice in the Palace. We can see the lingering effects to this day, in the poor attendance and surprisingly bad business fortunes of one of the most entertaining, successful franchises in the NBA.
This metaphorical virus was contracted and spread by a very small number of black athletes. In the NBA, unlike any other professional American sport, the actions of a few speak loudly for all the players. They all get lumped together, no matter how unfair or downright stupid it might seem.
During roughly the same time span since the Malice at the Palace, the Indianapolis Colts had twenty-three arrests. Doesn’t matter—people still pay big money to fill Lucas Oil Stadium every time the Colts play. It didn’t hurt that their star of stars, Peyton Manning, was a white quarterback who looked like he could have lived down the block from a large majority of the season-ticket holders. The Colts, however, were in the upper echelon of NFL teams when it came to arrests during the 2000s. There’re no long-term repercussions, though. There aren’t even short-term
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