You Herd Me!: I'll Say It If Nobody Else Will by Colin Cowherd Page B
Authors: Colin Cowherd
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players always laugh at NBA fights. He told me, “Man, we don’t wear hats and we don’t wear helmets. Our face is our moneymaker. Nobody wants to take a punch in the NBA.” If you watch most NBA “fights,” you can see Rose’s words in action. Guys square off and wait for someone to pull them apart. And yet, somehow, no sport has more athletes called
thug
.
Can we be honest? It’s racial coding.
John Daly, with a private life that would singe Keith Richards’s eyebrows, is a good ol’ boy.
Allen Iverson? Thug.
And the Pacers are still paying the price for the actions of a few black athletes. With a winning team in one of the less energized cities in America—Naptown, remember—they simply can’t draw.
I present, as a counterpoint, the city of Portland, Oregon. The Blazers sell out, even though they play in a worse arena with a worse team. The Blazers sell out, even though Portland is the No. 1 cycling city in the country, is an exceptional culinary town, is located one hour from the beach, and is one of the few U.S. cities close to year-round mountain skiing. The Blazers sell out, even though a far higher portion of the Portland population is earthy and eccentric, two qualities that aren’t automatically associated with rabid sports fans. The Blazers sell out, even though the franchise went through the better part of a decade being called “The Jail Blazers” because of the criminal behavior of several of its players—behavior far worse than anything the Pacers did in Detroit.
I can hear you out there:
Colin, it’s the economy
. Really? Is that why Portland is in the top ten in NBA attendance and home television ratings? Is it the economy? As of December 2012, Indiana had8 percent unemployment. Oregon? Eight percent unemployment. The economy argument doesn’t hold water.
Maybe voting patterns provide a more incisive look. Portland is progressive, tolerant, tech-embracing. Indianapolis is the most conservative city in America with a population above 500,000. There has to be something, right? Because on the surface, it makes no sense. The Pacers, tops in the league in rebounding, defense, and effort, are the perfect team for Hoosierville. And yet …
There’s more empirical evidence, courtesy of the Harris poll. According to them, the NFL is much bigger than college football, the NHL is much bigger than college hockey, and MLB is much bigger than college baseball. But the difference between the NBA and college basketball? Slim. Considering the quality of play in college basketball has been gradually sliding for years, why is college basketball almost as popular as the NBA?
Part of it is simply this: the NBA is the league with black stars. It doesn’t do well in TV ratings in rural communities. It does well in ethnic communities: Atlanta, Houston, New York, Miami, Chicago, Dallas. Race plays a role. The evidence is undeniable.
Mike Lupica once wrote that the NBA is the only sport where the fans don’t really like the players. Buzz Bissinger, noted author of
Friday Night Lights
, created a minor shitstorm at the NBA All Star Weekend in Los Angeles in 2010 when he attributed the NBA’s lack of popularity to a dearth of American-born white stars.
Was Bissinger just stirring up trouble? Looking for attention? I’m not so sure. On my flight home from that All Star Weekend in Los Angeles, I sat next to the marketing director for an NBA franchise. I asked him about the team’s first-round pick in the previous year’s draft. He grimaced and shook his head. This man who is in charge of selling his team to its fan base said he wished his team had picked a certain college guard instead.
When I asked him why, he looked me dead in the eye and said, “We could really use a white guard to market to our fans.”
His tone was direct and matter-of-fact. I got the impression he was left with no choice but to acknowledge a problem he wished didn’t exist.
Proximity to greatness doesn’t equal greatness.
thug
.
Can we be honest? It’s racial coding.
John Daly, with a private life that would singe Keith Richards’s eyebrows, is a good ol’ boy.
Allen Iverson? Thug.
And the Pacers are still paying the price for the actions of a few black athletes. With a winning team in one of the less energized cities in America—Naptown, remember—they simply can’t draw.
I present, as a counterpoint, the city of Portland, Oregon. The Blazers sell out, even though they play in a worse arena with a worse team. The Blazers sell out, even though Portland is the No. 1 cycling city in the country, is an exceptional culinary town, is located one hour from the beach, and is one of the few U.S. cities close to year-round mountain skiing. The Blazers sell out, even though a far higher portion of the Portland population is earthy and eccentric, two qualities that aren’t automatically associated with rabid sports fans. The Blazers sell out, even though the franchise went through the better part of a decade being called “The Jail Blazers” because of the criminal behavior of several of its players—behavior far worse than anything the Pacers did in Detroit.
I can hear you out there:
Colin, it’s the economy
. Really? Is that why Portland is in the top ten in NBA attendance and home television ratings? Is it the economy? As of December 2012, Indiana had8 percent unemployment. Oregon? Eight percent unemployment. The economy argument doesn’t hold water.
Maybe voting patterns provide a more incisive look. Portland is progressive, tolerant, tech-embracing. Indianapolis is the most conservative city in America with a population above 500,000. There has to be something, right? Because on the surface, it makes no sense. The Pacers, tops in the league in rebounding, defense, and effort, are the perfect team for Hoosierville. And yet …
There’s more empirical evidence, courtesy of the Harris poll. According to them, the NFL is much bigger than college football, the NHL is much bigger than college hockey, and MLB is much bigger than college baseball. But the difference between the NBA and college basketball? Slim. Considering the quality of play in college basketball has been gradually sliding for years, why is college basketball almost as popular as the NBA?
Part of it is simply this: the NBA is the league with black stars. It doesn’t do well in TV ratings in rural communities. It does well in ethnic communities: Atlanta, Houston, New York, Miami, Chicago, Dallas. Race plays a role. The evidence is undeniable.
Mike Lupica once wrote that the NBA is the only sport where the fans don’t really like the players. Buzz Bissinger, noted author of
Friday Night Lights
, created a minor shitstorm at the NBA All Star Weekend in Los Angeles in 2010 when he attributed the NBA’s lack of popularity to a dearth of American-born white stars.
Was Bissinger just stirring up trouble? Looking for attention? I’m not so sure. On my flight home from that All Star Weekend in Los Angeles, I sat next to the marketing director for an NBA franchise. I asked him about the team’s first-round pick in the previous year’s draft. He grimaced and shook his head. This man who is in charge of selling his team to its fan base said he wished his team had picked a certain college guard instead.
When I asked him why, he looked me dead in the eye and said, “We could really use a white guard to market to our fans.”
His tone was direct and matter-of-fact. I got the impression he was left with no choice but to acknowledge a problem he wished didn’t exist.
Proximity to greatness doesn’t equal greatness.
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