You might look at this supercool infographic courtesy of SuperSonic Soul, and say, “Wow! No wonder Stern is reporting half the league is in the red. Despite their super-neat revenue sharing model, it would appear that in fact, if you don’t play in a major market, you’re pretty much FUBAR.”
Well, to that, sir, I would tell you, what’s really better? A truly fair system that allows for a level playing system so that every team’s fans truly have a chance at a championship and so the league can gain maximum brand exposure nationwide, which has worked out pretty well for the NFfreakingL? Or a system where super-cool big market teams get super-cool big market players and win lots of championships and ratings are superb as long as those specific markets are involved so we can make the most money?
One question. Why aren’t the Thunder on here? They actually did pretty well in their first sea…oh.
Awkward.
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This is a pretty picture, not a useful graph and certainly not a graph that has explanatory relevance to the number of NBA franchises currently in the red. The symbol sizes are based on total wins for the franchise, with no consideration for the number of seasons that franchise has been in the league, so of course the younger franchises are going to show up as smaller, independent of market size. Even the assertion that it is necessary to play in a large market to win is not supported by this graph, consider that the Bulls symbol is smaller than the Spurs, even though the franchise is older and plays in one of the largest markets versus one of the smallest. The Kings also do not show up badly despite having always played in small markets. If anything stands out here it is how badly the Clippers have underperformed despite playing in large markets, since the ages of the newer expansion clubs are too low to draw any conclusions on this scale.
[...] An amazing graphic that depicts the true state of NBA “revenue-sharing”. [Hardwood Paroxysm] [...]
[...] [graph from SuperSonicSoul via Hardwood Paroxysm] [...]
Guaranteed contracts. That is the #1 reason for the differences between the leagues. Players have no accountability, too many GM’s do a poor job putting together a team, or a team just gets crippled by a bad contract or injured player. It sucks for them, but NFL players have to earn theirs every year. T-Mac wouldn’t pull his shit if he played for the Texans.
It also helps that every game is an event in the NFL. Whether your team sucks or not, you can go and tailgate and have fun 8 Sundays a year. Not as easy to swallow when you root for the Bucks and have to sit through traffic after work on a Wednesday night to them play the Clippers.
I live in Providence and have purchased 6 game deals for Celtics games when they stunk, and always decided not to go to at least 2 games because the teams weren’t worth the hassle of the trip on a work night.
Baseball has the same problems the NBA has in these regards.
What Quantitative said.
If this were a PSA-type poster in a high school boys locker room, I’d say that the Raptors, Grizzlies and Bobcats definitely did steroids.
I’m just surprised at how many wins the BULLETS had, despite not being in the league for nearly ten years ….