THE STUDY NOVEMBER 14, 2011
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Bad news, basketball fans: It looks like efforts to salvage this NBA season have finally collapsed. Players have rejected the league’s latest offer, and now a class-action suit against the NBA appears imminent. The impending legal wrangling isn’t likely to make anyone look good, but the AP report argues that “damage has already been done”: in addition to hundreds of millions of dollars that have already been lost, the players and owners “eventually must regain the loyalty of an angered fan base.” How worried should they be?
A 2004 paper by Holy Cross economist Victor Matheson suggests that it may be too late to stop long-term damage. Interestingly, he notes, most academic studies have concluded that sports strikes don’t bring about “permanent shifts in consumer demand.” But, Matheson argues, there is one important exception to that rule: the infamous baseball strike of 1994-5, from which the MLB “has never recovered.” That strike was unprecedented in severity: It spanned over two seasons and was the first in any major American sport to force the cancellation of postseason games. Fans, Matheson says, do not seem to have forgiven the league. Yes, attendance gradually returned to prestrike levels, but that is only due to “the construction of new stadiums at an unprecedented pace.” The MLB’s rapid stadium expansion can’t go on indefinitely. When that expansion stops, the long-term damage wrought by the league’s meltdown will catch up with it. If the NBA wants to avoid a similar fate, it would do well to learn from this example.
2 comments
Besides, baseball has always been cooler than basketball. Basketball is a college game, with different colleges supporting their teams. Professional basketball just gave baseball fans something to watch once the baseball season was over -- it's not really needed. They'd better watch their butts.
- AllanL5
November 14, 2011 at 5:04pm
College football will soon learn that television is the nemesis of college football not its friend. By that I mean the current conference expansion that is designed to increase revenues from television at the expense of the interest of the fans. How many North Carolina fans will travel to Pittsburg or Syracuse, and how many care whether Carolina beats or loses to either of them? Baseball lost fans for the same reason the Cardinals won the 2011 World Series. By that I mean baseball's long season (162 games) was meant to reward longevity and survival and the teams built for the long season, which is why the Yankees won all those World Series. They had the best players and were rewarded for it. No longer. A team can sneak into the playoffs with a middling record and win the World Series by defeating far superior teams in a couple of short series. Playoffs? After 162 games? It's preposterous, and the reason why baseball has lost so many fans. Me anyway. Bring back the National League season champion and the American League season champion to decide the true season champion, and real fans will return to America's game. And I'm not going to Pittsburg, or to Syracuse.
- rayward
November 14, 2011 at 5:15pm