I find hot take sports journalism to be tiresome, yet here I am with a click-baity headline and a hot take of my own. I’ve enjoyed watching each of the sports I’m about to trash at one time or another, so know from the outset that I’m not trying to be an ideological purist or a self-righteous douchebag. One misstep, or even several, does not define any person or organization. To put this argument in the proper context I’ll just say as I get older I find it easier to invest myself in something when I feel good about the place it’s coming from.
You don’t have to love basketball to believe that the NBA is America’s best sports league. It’s also not essential that you approve of all league activities to love a sport. That being said, it is my belief that it helps.
The Logic
There are four major sports leagues in the America: National Football League (NFL), Major League Baseball (MLB), National Hockey League (NHL) and the National Basketball Association (NBA). Which one is the best America sports league? Let’s take a look.
NFL
The NFL is the most popular sport in the USA, at least by the numbers. It consistently wins the yearly ratings competition The Super Bowl is so popular even the godd@mn commercials are a big deal. Americans plan their entire weekends around football, we fu@king love it. It is also the least player-friendly league with the most long-term problems.
The NFL has shown a consistent pattern of “protecting the shield” (the league itself) over the welfare of it’s players. Not only did the NFL deny that concussions were leading to long term brain damage in its players but they also tried to actively influence the research to downplay the issue. They made it difficult for players suffering from football-related head injuries to get health benefits from the league. The NFL is the most brutal of all the major American sports with a mean injury rate of 5.90 injuries per game (the next closest sport is MLB at 0.45 injuries per game). For the league’s own well-being you’d think they would understand this at least make an attempt to look like they care. Instead, the NFL lustily promotes their star players, who put their health on the line every week, for gobs of profit only to cut their broken bodies loose once their careers are over.
To be fair, the NFL has modified some of the rules to make the game a little bit safer. It’s like installing airbags into the wall fragments of a crashed airplane. Millenials and Gen Z are already starting to tune the NFL out. Pop Warner youth football leagues are seeing significant declines in enrollment. A growing percentage of the younger generations either aren’t interested or aren’t allowed to be a part of this slow motion car wreck. As a dad to a 10 year-old boy, I’ve told my son that he can play flag football but he’ll never play tackle. His brain is too important.
The NFL treats its players like garbage. It’s a toxic mix of the white male patriarchy and a military-style chain of command. Feel however you want about how Colin Kaepernick delivered his message, but his obvious blackballing sends a clear signal to the rest of the players that they’d better stay in line or they’re gone. On the field, players are told to be disciplined and “do your job” while playing for the only major American sports league to not fully guarantee their contracts.
Oh did you see that phat contract Patrick Mahommes signed with the Kansas City Chiefs? $503 million over 10 years, the largest contract in league history. Damn, son! $500 mil is a lotta cheddar, time to buy an island! Or maybe hold off since only the first $63 million is fully guaranteed. Wow, still a lot of money but 63 feels like a lot less than 503. After that, it gets very complicated with incentives and the majority of the money coming via roster bonuses that make it seem like he’s unlikely to reach that full $503 million, maybe? Hope he doesn’t get too many concussions.
Lastly, I’ve come to see each sports league’s COVID reopening plan as a good barometer on both the quality of leadership in the league and an expression of that league’s values. These are extraordinary times and deserve an extraordinary (hopefully) one-time response. The number of COVID outbreaks and resulting game postponements seem to indicate the NFL’s system and/or rate of compliance is not awesome. Given this coordinated assault from prominent players, I think it’s safe to say the NFL didn’t have player safety at the front of their minds when crafting this plan.
All of that being said, I still share a fantasy football team with my son and watch some of the games on Sunday. It’s still fun, even if I cringe at every hard hit and shake my head at the inevitable injuries. I’m not sure how much longer I can justify being a fan, frankly.
MLB
Baseball was first referred to as the national pastime in the 1850s. It was true for a time, when there weren’t any other major sports competing for the same distinction. Sometimes when something is said unchallenged for decades it becomes accepted as an immutable truth, almost a point of religion. As the world inevitably changes it has the potential to become propaganda.
Let’s be honest, America’s true national pastime is screaming at each other on social media. From a sports standpoint, NFL football has a much better claim to this title than MLB does. Why? I’d argue that MLB has been too slow to adapt to the times.
MLB’s season is 162 games over seven months. I understand there are economic forces that will never change this, but it’s hard to follow that many games let alone actually watch them. There is so much access to entertainment out there that it is literally not possible to devote three hours 162 times in seven months.
Not only is it way too many games, but they are 162 boring games. Baseball is painfully slow. Don’t take my word for it, look at the changes MLB is experimenting with to speed the game up. Each game is such a commitment that fans tend to mostly watch their local teams much more than whatever games are nationally televised. In other words, people don’t generally watch baseball just for the baseball, they need to be personally invested to sit through it. MLB knows if they don’t adapt the game to the modern world it will be a problem.
MLB also has a long history of scandal. Can we really hang this on the league? Not in every case, but I think they deserve a lot of criticism for looking the other way throughout the steroid era. Any person with eyes could see that Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds doubled in size during this period. The home run races of the late 90s and early 2000s were a boon to a league desperate for an upswing after the strike killed the ’94-’95 season. The ratings were there, the money was flowing and the owners and commissioner chose plausible deniability over the integrity of the sport. The most recent Houston Astros scandal hasn’t inspired confidence that MLB’s culture of cheating has changed.
Fast forward to the MLB COVID reopening plan. The owners complained that delaying the season was costing them a lot of money (no sh!t, welcome to the club) and that a large portion of their revenue will disappear without fans in the seats. Their solution? Let’s cut the players salaries. Sure, they’ll be the ones risking their health to fly around the country to play the very games that make the owners money, but let’s pass the economic pain along to them so the numbers work. WTF.
After a flurry of positive tests and game cancellations, MLB finally went on a nice streak of days without any positive results. That is, until the World Series, where Justin Tucker of the freshly crowned champion Los Angeles Dodgers was allowed to return to the field, without a mask, after learning mid-game (What? They got the results mid-game?) that he tested positive for the coronavirus. To reiterate, Justin Tucker knew that he had the coronavirus, as did league officials, and he was permitted back onto a crowded field to cozy up to his teammates without a mask. WTF!
NHL
There are several arguments I could make against the NHL as a league, including still allowing fights without stiff enough penalties (or banning it altogether) and their own bullshitty handling of the concussion issue. In my view only one argument is needed, and that argument is that the NHL is a Canadian league.
Since 1989 the NHL has been headquartered in New York City. Before then? Montreal (that’s in Canada). The NHL was founded (in Canada) after the dissolution of the NHA in 1917. The first teams to form the NHL were the Montreal Canadiens, the Montreal Wanderers, the Ottawa Senators and the Toronto Arenas. Where are all of those cities located? Motherfu@kin’ Canada.
Today 43% of the players in the NHL are Canadian. Americans comprise only about 26%. How can there be any argument for the NHL being America’s best sports league when only a quarter of the league is American?
Don’t try to hang the label of canuck xenophobe on me, either. I’m woke to Canada. It seems like a lovely country with exceedingly nice people. I laugh at Jim Carrey and Seth Rogen. I think hockey is a fine game. It’s just Canada’s game.
Enjoy your hockey, just don’t call it America’s greatest sports league. Okay, hoser?
NBA
Finally, the best sports league in America, the NBA.
David Stern became Commissioner of the NBA in 1984. He’s credited with doing three things that saved the league:
- Made sure the games were televised live so people didn’t have to watch Magic and Bird on tape delay.
- Turned the All-Star Game into All-Star Weekend, which allowed the league to generate more revenue and sell itself through events like the dunk contest and 3-point shootout.
- Started marketing the league through the NBA’s star players.
Turning his best players into high-profile stars had the side effect of making the players more powerful. It gave them an essential role in the success of the league. The NBA is now often referred to as a Players’ League and it’s hard to argue with that designation when you see so many players successfully navigating their way to the team of their choice. Expecting this much control can sometimes make the players seem a little whiney and entitled, but I’d rather live with that and have the balance of power lean toward the players than give it all to team ownership.
The NBA hasn’t just empowered the players to be equal partners with the teams, they’ve also supported them in speaking out on issues they believe in. We are all human beings with experiences and points of view. We should all be able to express those views, respectfully and thoughtfully, without fearing professional repercussions. The NBA has not only allowed players to express themselves freely without penalty, but they’ve encouraged it.
Current NBA Commissioner Adam Silver deserves a lot of credit. His approach to the players is to listen and understand before responding. He sees individual expression and free speech as rights to which the players are entitled. He even went as far as to allow “Black Lives Matter” to be printed on the court, despite some owners not being in favor of it, and for players to put customized messages on the backs of their jerseys in support of the same.
I’m sure there are a lot of people who were turned off by this type of heavily political messaging at a sporting event and I can see that point of view. But I can also see that the NBA is a majority-african american league and that many of the players feel personally connected to the BLM movement and message. Allowing the players to freely express themselves builds trust with the league and sends the message that the league is listening and that the league cares.
Look at how the NBA handled the pandemic restart. It all started with player safety, not a focus on the economics. They created a bubble in Orlando where all the games would be played. They had strict safety protocols, put together in close consultation with the players union. After a couple of players tested positive during the entry period into the bubble there were zero positive coronavirus test results while the NBA played the rest of their regular season and all of the playoffs in the bubble. It was difficult for the players to be in isolation that long, but they did it to bring the game back while ensuring player safety, and at great expense.
Well done, NBA. You are America’s best sports league.
But now I have to admit I am a little biased. I have loved basketball for a long time. Like any good tale worth reading, this one ends with a love story.
The Love
As kid I was obsessed with Michael Jordan. He was the gateway drug that got me hooked on basketball (and shoes). MJ is the greatest athlete to play any sport ever. Don’t argue, shut up and watch this instead. While any case for Mike being the GOAT can be credibly supported by statistics, the true measure of his greatness is his impact on the game and the culture at large. There’s a reason that Jordan Brand is a billion dollar arm of Nike more than 17 years after his retirement.
What was that feeling that Jordan gave me when I watched him play? I’ve never read a description that quite captures it in its totality. It’s been called poetry in motion but it’s got more edge than that. It’s been called a type of improvised dance, but it’s more like dancing at somebody instead of for them. It’s flamboyant in the most pathologically competitive way. It’s Van Gogh with a sleeve tattoo. It’s Baryshnikov in a pair of Air Jordan 1 x Union Black Toes. It’s Marvin Gaye singing the national anthem.
I think MJ (and the modern NBA at large) is best understood as a vibe. It’s the energy of the city lights and the parks, the shoe shops and the local gyms. It’s the living fantasy of childhood dreams played out in adult pickup games that keep the torch lit until the body burns out. Basketball is a tone poem of the playground, both city and suburban, in the USA and around the world. It’s a block party and we’re all invited.
All you need is the one round ball and a hoop. One on one. Two on two. Full court five on five. You can play the game on any court at any time with as many players as you can find. The game molds itself into whatever form you need it to be. What other sport can do that?
I love basketball but, more importantly, I’m glad I can also feel good about loving basketball.
-MG
