Not so long ago, the Toronto Raptors’ post-title Plan A was ‘Giannis will save us.’
Nigerian-born superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo was buddies with Raptors president Masai Ujiri. All Toronto had to do was wait for him to become a free agent and then, voila, more championships.
Instead, Antetokounmpo re-upped with Milwaukee and Toronto entered a slow, Twilight Zone spiral to nowhere. Things hadn’t worked out since for either party.
Antetokounmpo and the Bucks went from reliable conversation starters to the most boring good team in the NBA. They didn’t win the interesting games or do any interesting things.
Until Tuesday night. Led by Antetokounmpo, the Bucks beat everyone’s basketball crush, the Oklahoma City Thunder, in the final of the NBA Cup. Now both he and they are a thing again.
No sports league thinks outside the box. It’s warm in the box. The box is where the money is. But some leagues are increasingly open to stealing other people’s boxes.
The NBA Cup’s round-robin-cum-knockout format is a smart combo of the familiar (the Final Four) and the exotic (the Champions League). It feels European, which is always hot with the type of cosmopolitan fan North American leagues are chasing.
The most immediate payoff for the NBA Cup is that it has switched Antetokounmpo back on. He was lost to the league’s marketers, and now he is found. All glory to Nike.
The NBA is currently full of hybrid brainwaves. Its latest – a reimagined all-star game. Instead of two teams jogging the length of the floor without the hindrance of defence, there will be four teams of eight men. Two semi-final games; one final. Each game ends as soon as someone scores 40. Call it T20 cricket for its speed.
NBA star Kevin Durant has already said he “absolutely hates it,” which strikes me as another reason to do it. Nothing great was the popular choice the first time it was said aloud.
This new, for-funsies all-star format might turn out to be an unwatchable disaster. But either way, people will talk about it. They will check in for the postmortems. That’s what matters.
It’s never a great time for visionaries in sports, because even the most risk-averse ding dong could make a success of a team right now. Many ding dongs do.
A new investment group just valued the Philadelphia Eagles at more than US$8-billion. Three years ago, Forbes believed the Dallas Cowboys were the most valuable sports franchise on the planet at US$5.7-billion. Whatever you think a team is worth now, it’s worth more.
Anybody with a 10-figure savings account and a lack of imagination wants in. Everybody with some profile, Hollywood-types especially, are trailing behind them like remora. If you are famous and you’re not in the owners’ box at the big game, do you even exist? It’s worth serious study.
Because there are too few good teams for sale, buyers have begun shopping at new leagues with new teams. Just taking into account a parallel women’s pro version of most major male leagues will almost double the size of sports in a decade. The result is an obvious bubble.
It’s been a long time since we’ve read stories about clubs playing in front of empty rooms, or going bankrupt. So long that we’ve begun to think such things are no longer possible. Like icebergs.
The smart leagues see the black swan headed their way. They can’t recession-proof their businesses, but they can make moves to assure they continue to lead the conversation.
More than a revenue source, that’s what the NBA Cup is – a shiny object to lure in the tired, bored and overwhelmed.
Even Major League Baseball gets this. A couple of weeks ago, it floated the idea of a ‘golden at-bat.’ The broad stroke is that once a game, each team could send any hitter to the plate for an extra at-bat.
Is it a good idea? No, because it’s not even a fully formed idea yet. It’s a vague proposition. But it impelled a full week of angry debate in the papers and online. How much is that advertising worth? Whether the golden at-bat ever becomes real, it’s already a success.
Sports is the only business that grows exponentially without innovating. All the major changes to their model – free agency, global TV access, booming sponsorship – sprang up externally. All sports had to do was sit there saying, ‘tradition’, and doing things the way they’d always been done. That time is ending. That leagues are changing is the proof. If you believe that women’s sport will peel off a generation of kids and hipster adults, that attention has to come from somewhere. The most likely source is more established sports. At some point, consumers will decide – men’s or women’s hockey.
A replica jersey from either league costs $200. For middle-class parents with a couple of children, that’s a zero-sum choice. Right now, owners kid themselves that everyone can become monstrously rich together. But eventually, the phony war for attention will turn hot.
What’s the NHL doing to prepare for this? Nothing. It thinks that hiring Amazon to write its dating profile will solve everything.
Mid-season competitions? Major rule changes to enhance the viewing experience? Revamping the standings metrics so that the playoff race isn’t over by December?
No, no, too risky. People might laugh at us. Better to stay just as we are right now. Anything else is scary.
It’s (sort of) working for the NHL now in a boom market. Will it continue working when the bust rolls around? Probably not. But it will at least have its traditions.