Steve Buckley: No NBA Season, No Loss

[Way Of The Ray <wayray@ix.netcom.com>]

                  Boston Herald
                  No NBA season? No loss
                  by Steve Buckley
         
                  Wednesday, January 6, 19
      
                  They keep appearing on television, night after night, the
                  owners and the players, the players and the owners,
                  offering their own twists and spins and viewpoints on the
                  NBA ``lockout.''

                  You try to pick out the bad guys. You can't. Nobody
                  emerges as the hero. Everyone is the villain. Trying to
                  take sides in this long-running NBA labor saga is like
                  taking sides in a war between Iran and Iraq, or like being
                  a first-time attendee of a professional wrestling card:
                  It's impossible to distinguish good from evil.
                  Go into any bar, bowling alley or pool hall where sports
                  is a frequent topic of conversation and you won't find 
                  soul who will give you a spirited defense of either the
                  owners or the players.

                  Simply put, American sports fans are tuning out the NBA.
                  There is no outrage.

                  If there had been an NBA lockout 10 or 20 years ago, maybe
                  even five years ago, fans would have stormed the arenas.
                  The George Will types would have weighed in. The president
                  would have urged the owners and players to reach an
                  agreement.

                  But that was back in the days when the NBA was
                  entertaining. There was team play in those days. There was
                  passing. The players were craftsmen. They cared.

                  Let's just say it: The NBA stinks. Most of its fans are
                  old fans, attached to the league by habit, stuck with
                  season tickets they bought a couple of years ago. And the
                  joke is, that's exactly what people used to say about
                  baseball. Now, baseball attracts young fans. The NBA has
                  become about as hip as a ``Dobie Gillis'' rerun.

                  Whenever a big league baseball season is stopped, fans
                  quickly choose sides. You blame the owners, or you blame
                  the players, and then you scream, ``They stole our
                  summer.''

                  I have yet to hear a sports fan complain that the NBA
                  players have stolen his winter.

                  I have yet to hear a sports fan complain that the NBA
                  owners have stolen his winter.

                  Instead, most sports fans have quietly and comfortably
                  shifted their entertainment dollars and their spare time
                  on the couch to other pursuits - college hoops, hockey,
                  movies, books.

                  Maybe these fans are spending more time with their
                  families. Maybe they are dusting off their old sneakers
                  and going to the gym. Maybe they have discovered a hobby.
                  Rare coins, or stamps. Or, irony or ironies, maybe they
                  are buying and selling and trading old NBA bubble gum
                  cards.

                  Whatever. The point is that they are not pining away for
                  the NBA season. Nobody is.

                  Nobody.

                  Is that what the owners and the players wanted? Ruination?
                  Oblivion? Irrelevance?

                  Hey, forget about this season. Look ahead to next season,
                  assuming there is a next season. Is anyone connected with
                  the NBA so foolish, so arrogant, so stupid as to assume
                  that fans will embrace the NBA season when play resumes?

                  I see empty seats. I see horrific TV and radio ratings. I
                  see sports editors sending fewer reporters on the road,
                  ordering up fewer features, sending fewer assignment slips
                  to the photo desk.

                  Sports programmers and sports editors only give you what
                  they think you want. If they come to the conclusion you
                  don't have any interest in the NBA, they will offer you
                  something else.

                  Not long ago, professional athletes - in all sports -
                  weren't much more than upper-middle class working stiffs.
                  A few of them made the truly big cake, but the rest of
                  them had to go out and find jobs as soon as the season was
                  over.

                  But then the television money got crazy, so the owners got
                  crazy, and then the players got crazy, and this is where
                  we are: We have seen labor crises in all four major sports
                  leagues.

                  And each time a league has gone on strike, or each time
                  there has been a lockout, some expert has popped up on
                  television and predicted that, someday, an entire season
                  will be lost. It always seemed preposterous, didn't it?
                  Couldn't happen, right?

                  It has happened. And it will continue to happen, unless
                  the other leagues learn a lesson from the NBA and
                  recognize that such diversions as the Internet,
                  interactive games and bargain-basement tourist packages
                  are teaching consumers that there other ways to spend
                  money and spare time.

                  Nobody needs the NBA. That's why nobody misses it.