Wednesday, July 23, 2008

NBA Season Ends but The Real Fun Begins...


When the NBA season ended I'm sure a lot of NBA fans may of thought that, with the number of superstar free agents down, that there wouldn't be as much drama going on into the off-season. Especially none that would rival what basketball fans went through last summer (The Kobe Bryant Trade Situation). Surprisingly this has not been the case and some of the credit for this should go the the media.

The summer began with a number of online and television coverage. Everything from what it was like to be a number one or two overall pick to what the draft prospects did in their spare time and at workouts. Fans knew almost everything there was to know about the top prospects in the draft and the top websites and sports media outlets provided that.

After that we had the Seattle Sonics fans getting their hearts ripped out due to their owner winning the case against the city and gaining the right to move the team to Oklahoma City. That caused many columnists and former NBA players and fans to be in an uproar. Not to mention a lot of people felt sorry for Seattle.

Then the real interesting things began. This off-season is filled with storylines that could rival the professional wrestling and many soap operas. We had a betrayal story with Elton Brand leaving his former team, (LA Clippers) to go to the Philadelphia 76ers. We had the LA Clippers taking Baron Davis from the Warriors and the Warriors retaliating by signing the Clippers guard Corey Maggette. These headlines plus the fact that websites such as ESPN.com and RealGM.com added to their websites a sort of free agent tracker that tracks the movements of the players meant that this off-season was going to be full of news and stories that will get fans talking.

And the off-season events seem to be far from over. We have the US Olympic team playing in August and the storyline surrounding that which depicts the team as the ultimate come-back story since they disgraced themselves four years ago at the Olympics. We also have a new trend to where NBA players, if they feel disrespected by their teams in terms of contract negotiations, are bolting for overseas teams like Greece and Italy.

Who said that this off-season would be boring.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

No Love For The Women's League...

Did you know that professional basketball history was made in the WNBA on
July 19th? Well don't be upset if you didn't. You are probably in the majority. On July 19th WNBA teams, the New York Liberty and the Indiana Fever played the first professional basketball game outdoors at the Author Ashe Stadium. The usual home of the U.S. Tennis Open. The sad thing was that this game was televised on NBATV which isn't a channel that everyone has.

When it comes to the WNBA most of the time the best coverage you can get on their events is on their website. Even the historic events such as this aren't covered. ESPN.com doesn't even mention it on its home pages and its only been a day later. If the NBA did something like this then I am sure it would be on the home page for at least two or three days accompanied by columns that support it.

The only thing that this event received in terms of coverage highlights provided by NBA.com and ESPN and a recap of what happened.


What this says to me is that if the WNBA can't draw in fans and coverage by being the first, even before the men, to have a professional basketball game outdoors, then I don't see the WNBA lasting very long. When you look at WNBA games it is clear that they don't have as many fans and when you look at shows like ESPN you don't see them get as much coverage than the NBA does. This is evident when you look at ESPN's WNBA page and see that they only list one woman as a blogger and contributer.

In my opinion even though the WNBA has tried to make strides to make their game more appealing though commercials and bringing in new and exciting talent there is something still missing that prevents the WNBA from recieving the media coverage and popularity it needs to survive. Even if they make history.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

The Power Athletes Have in the Media...


When you think of the power of an athlete you may think of the physical or mental strength that is shown when he is participating in his or her sport. What some may not realize (I only realized this today) that athletes also have the power to changed what an audience will think about first when it comes to news and what the media will set first on their agenda.

There is theory that I learned in class called the Agenda-setting theory. This is a theory in which people believe that the media have an influence on an audience by determining what news stories would be covered first, how much they are covered, and if they are in fact worthy of the coverage. An example of this is when a media outlet might hide real issues and force us to focus on smaller things (happens in politics and the war situation a lot) due to the coverage the media outlet gives to the "smaller things".

In sports journalism, however, what if it could be proven that athletes, not the media outlets, had this power all along or at least had the ability to use this power to their advantage? What lead to me thinking about this subject happened yesterday on ESPN. I was watching ESPN News when breaking news flashed below the main screen saying that Brett Favre is thinking about comming back to the NFL out of retirement. Now besides the ill-feelings I had at the time after hearing this news (I personally think Farve is selfish for starting this again), I sat and witnessed all of the coverage now shift to Farve and the rumors going around about his return to football.

On Sportscenter and the shows following that they all talked about Brett Favre and what he should do, what the NFL should do, and what his team should do all because of the information that they found out which was that Farve said he has an "itch" to play again and that his family is pushing him to do so.

It didn't click until this morning that Favre just changed the whole ESPN agenda that night just by starting rumors. In a couple of minuets Favre exhibited the power make ESPN put all the focus on him and brought his name back into the forefront and influence the audience to talk about him again.

Without these rumors Favre wouldn't even have been mentioned that afternoon (Wednesday, July 2nd) being that he retired four months ago and football fans were getting over him.

This isn't the only example, however. Look at the Kobe Bryant situation last summer. All he did was say "I want to be traded" and immediately he had the attention of all basketball fans and all of the sports media. His story and news about on updates on whether Bryant would get traded or not was immediately set above any story that occurred that summer.

Now-a-days athletes have the power to changed even the media's opinion on certain things. Look at Jose Canseco and his book that told on baseball players who used steroids. A few days after the book became public it was talked about and even referenced in the media when it came to the names that were stated in the book. That book influenced the opinions of the media and of baseball fans on the players named in the book.

All I am saying is maybe when it comes to sports journalism, who determines what news appears first and what the audience focuses is on first, maybe more in the hands of athletes than it is the sports media outlets themselves. Not to say that the sports media has no control over it but I am saying that maybe their control over the situation is lesser than the control that blogs or other national media outlets have.

I believe that sports media just reports on what happens and if an athlete that is prominent enough says something outrageous, he thrusts himself into the spotlight and to the top of the media world's agenda.

Think about it...