Why Hockey Will Rise Once Again, and the NBA Will Fall

I recently had a mini-argument over Facebook with someone about the popularity order of professional sports. It's pretty clear what the Big Four of American sports are, but this guy was arguing that baseball was a distant third in the sports world, with the NFL and NBA going 1-2 (leaving the NHL in the cellar). Now, I could be suffering from some bias here with baseball as my far and away favorite professional sport, but I believe that MLB is second with the NBA at third. After apparently agreeing to disagree and leaving the topic alone for awhile, my brain revisited it and started to wonder what makes a particular sport popular in this country. Certainly there are plenty of factors, but it seems that the basic rule has to do with the team element more than anything.

I'm not exactly claiming that one sport is more of a team sport than another. In football a QB can't throw a touchdown without receivers and a running back can't run for one without some blocking. Baseball players can't drive in many runs without their teammates on base, and even then you need to rely on the pitchers and each other to keep the other team from scoring. In the NBA and NHL, successful plays, defenses, and formations require the whole unit working together. But the popularity of the NBA and NHL is much more heavily dependent on the popularity of the individual, whereas the NFL and MLB is more dependent on team popularity. Do you really think half the people interested in the NBA now would be if LeBron or Kobe weren't playing? Shaq's closer and closer to retiring, Kobe is aging, and LeBron has been worked to the bone the last couple years to the point where he could have his incredible career cut prematurely by injury. Popularity will still suffer if Kobe leaves and LeBron stays healthy because that individual rivalry will be lost.

Now look at the sports superstars in the NFL and MLB... hm... well the problem with that is that there isn't quite the separation of popularity between the first tier and second tier of superstars in these sports. I've been racking my brain trying to figure out who in the NFL and MLB world really separates themselves from the pack. Tom Brady and Peyton Manning? Albert Pujols and David Ortiz? There's still some questionability in claiming those players the most popular. Anyone who follows either sport could easily make a case that a third player is more popular than the choices I presented. In the NBA there's no question, absolutely no doubt, that LeBron and Kobe are the most popular players. They have their own stupid Nike puppet commercials, for shit's sake!

I mentioned the player rivalry of Kobe-LeBron, but player rivalries don't exist in the NFL or MLB. Players have tiffs and confrontations and arguments, but no real rivalries. That's left to the teams: Red Sox-Yankees, Cowboys-Giants, Cardinals-Cubs, Packers-Bears, Dodgers-Giants, Chargers-Raiders. That's just the top of the heap though. In the NBA there's not much I hear beyond Celtics-Lakers, and even then only recently has it been revived, and only in the Finals does it matter. The NFL and MLB have compelling rivalries that will always garner interest and will forever garner interest because the teams aren't going anywhere. Players' playing careers come and go, along with their rivalries, so say goodbye to Kobe-LeBron in a few years, and the popularity of the NBA with it.

The NBA and NHL rely on individual star power, and that's why they're subject to swings in popularity. So as Kobe-LeBron we will say goodbye to before you know it, a more interesting player rivalry from the NHL will take center stage: Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin. Not since Mario Lemieux has there really been as captivating a player as either Crosby or Ovechkin, and it escapes my very marginal knowledge of the sport of hockey to come up with another interesting player rivalry as this one. Crosby is by some hailed as the next Wayne Gretzky. He just won his first Stanley Cup with the Pittsburgh Penguins this year, and has a Golden-Boy image about him. Ovechkin by direct contrast to Crosby has been labeled as the bad boy, and the two have already had an epic 7-game playoff matchup this year. In addition to this rivalry, the pickup of games by the VS. channel and its transition to basic cable, rule changes since the 2004-05 lockout that help increase scoring, and an affluent fan base have helped the NHL reach a record number of sponsors and viewers in 2009. The NHL is definitely on the upswing, and even I was interested in this year's Stanley Cup Playoffs after years of neglect, and the more I watch Hockey the more I enjoy it. I will be paying attention when the new season starts, and I bet many more will join me.

The NBA will enter a sport's recession. It's happened before all around. Baseball's players' strike in 1994 crippled the sport until division realignment and the 1998 season (and by ironic proxy steroids) saved it. The NBA reached an all-time high in ratings in the 1997-98 season, but a lockdown following said season caused wild fluctuations in popularity and led to an all-time low in ratings in 2005. The NHL had its 2004-05 season entirely cancelled, but has come roaring back in the last season. Avoiding such player salary complications is probably a large reason why the NFL has constantly stayed the most popular sport in the country. Baseball has been in some turmoil for the past 6 years once this whole steroid thing started coming out, and while there are some lingering stories left in this saga, the MLB has reformed and has come out of this intact thanks to the wild-card format, expansion, and thus increasing parity. Despite a decade-low rating for the 2008 World Series (one that did feature a smaller composite market), 8 different teams have won a World Series since 1999, keeping fans from all around interested.

Team sports will always remain more popular than individual sports. Popularity with individuals sports come and go with the individual. Where would golf currently be without Tiger Woods? Swimming without Michael Phelps? Snowboarding without Shaun White? That's why it's interesting that the guy I was discussing this topic with said he believed that the UFC will overtake Hockey in popularity. It won't happen. I understand that the UFC has a growing, select, and very loyal fan base, enough to last, but it is still an individual sport, and those sports will never carry the same weight that team sports do. It's the individual focus in the NBA and NHL that allows it to suffer. What happens when everyone's favorite player retires? People stop watching basketball and hockey, but fans are more concerned with their team in football and baseball. Who knows why that is? Maybe we like the idea of overpaid millionaire athletes working together to win a trophy. Maybe it's easier to attach yourself to a team because of the city you live in, but how do you choose a person who plays golf or bowls or swims? Because they're the best? That's what creates douchebags and represents all the wrong things about routing for a team.

My favorite sport is and always will be baseball. But now that I'm living in a city with an NFL team, and now the NBA team from my hometown has once again become champions, and now after actually watching Hockey and enjoying it, I keep at least a moderate interest in all four major American sports. Right now I'm wrapped up with the best team in baseball, so at this moment it's all baseball all the time. All sports seems to converge sometime in October, so check back with me then.

Edit: One more thing I should mention is the fact the NBA salary cap is going to decrease the next couple seasons. With the decrease of the salary cap and luxury tax levels, the growing recession and the impending free agency of some of the game's premiere players that will demand top dollar, unless something is changed it looks like we're going to be heading into another player lockout. Hopefully it won't come to that (unless, of course, it is required for me to be right :) ).