Salk: Will NBA’s successful scripted soap opera infect other sports?

How dangerous is the scripted soap opera known as the NBA to the future of sports? Depending on your perspective, potentially very.

Look, I don’t begrudge the NBA going the way of “As The World Turns.” The product went downhill a long time ago, it has zero competitive balance, and the players are generally more concerned with looking cool in the regular season than with being great. That’s fine. But I don’t want it to infect everything else.

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I like a little drama. The NFL has always had a little. Baseball could maybe use a little more, and if you follow hockey closely, you can see it (though it isn’t covered or discussed).

But the NBA is growing. Rapidly. National ratings are up and I think it has more to do with the amount of coverage and conversation it generates than the quality of the product. The games are quick little installments in the soap opera – they provide ammunition to the talking heads and gossip writers on ESPN and FOX who have gone all in because it generates great content for a large swath of the audience.

That’s the key. The NBA’s formula really easy for a large group to digest. It’s hard to do national conversation about sports. Unless there is a major event (like a championship) or an enormous story (like Deflategate), you are constantly choosing from the best local content. But even the best local content is not truly relevant or compelling to everyone outside that locale.

The NFL has always been king because its games are national events that interest the whole country. But the NBA isn’t local at all. Most teams have no chance of winning the championship. And by most, I mean probably 28 of 30. That’s staggering. Fans in 28 cities buy tickets knowing their team isn’t in the running. But the NBA seems willing to trade that grassroots local interest for the national conversation. And it’s working. Not only is it building its success on national conversation, it is building a young fan base that doesn’t care as much about regionalism and is happy to buy into the posterization/meme/postgame presser marketing of the NBA.

Nevermind that the NBA has had a referee admit to betting on games and the guy who started the most recent college basketball scandal is an ex-NBA ref. They are taking the WWE lead and just rolling with it.

I feel like I’ve lost one of the sports of my youth. And I can afford to lose one. I don’t begrudge the younger generation having a sport that fits their needs. I just hope it doesn’t create a need for the other sports – and specifically baseball – to do the same.

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