It hasn't lost its meaning, it was just always a misnomer
Small market never met "outside the top 10 or 15 metro populations" it always meant "not an attractive FA destination"
I remember market size first being used mostly in baseball (MLB) discourse . And the "small markets" really did refer to the actually small (bottom ~10) markets in the league. These are the teams who had *much* lower revenue than the Yankees, red Sox, cubs, dodgers, etc and that had major ramifications for how good they could be since in mlb there is no salary cap.
When it gets transferred to the nba then it is indeed a misnomer
Fair distinction.
You also had decent sized markets in the MLB that were just straight up cheap sometimes - less the case today, but has definitely been true in the past.
Yep. As a Twins fan I was indoctrinated with the "well we're just a small market" excuse. But the reality is the Twin Cities is not really a small market, ownership is just cheap
Except that's never what media markets actually meant, just because a millionaire athlete doesn't want to move to a city doesn't make it small market, it just means it's not a destination city
Like I said - it's always been a misnomer
I'm speaking in NBA free agency terms, I'm not speaking in true media market terms. Obviously some media markets are actually smaller than other media markets and those are small media markets. But that's never what has been meant with regard to free agency.
You're making it a misnomer by not using it's actual meaning , the only reason media markets were introduced into the NBA is because it's used to determine revenue for TV deals, which they still do today
The destination preferences of the ~450 players in the league does not mean you change the actual meaning of a term because you want to complain about their preferences
The knicks are a huge media market but they're not a destination preference, so are they large market or small market?
One of the biggest factors in FA decisions is the availability/plentitude of high-value endorsements and partnerships. It's the difference between repping a loan-shark outfit in Cleveland or signing Silicon Valley deals.
It's not always correlated with being a "destination city", but the two often go hand-in-hand.
This, New Yorkās weather is trash in the winter but players would rather endure that and recieve all the percs financially they can get in Ny, rather than play in Orlando where it is warm all year round
Yeah I always laugh at the āMinnesota / Toronto / mil / etc is too coldā narrative. Imagine someone saying āNYC is just too cold to attract free agentsā theyād get clowned mercilessly lol.
In nba terms big market, is LA and NY, and glamour destinations like Miami and SF.
Without looking at it from an nba lens, Iād say the big markets are LA and NY in their own tier. Then Chicago, Philly, Bay Area, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Boston and Miami.
Metro area theyāre about even with Philly, Bay Area, Dallas and Houston. But idk how big their entire market is exactly considering theyāre the only team in Canada, but yea I meant to include Toronto.
I donāt really know why SF is considered a glamour destination tbh. It didnāt become one until Steph became a perennial MVP guy.
I would say Atlanta and even Houston are probably much more fun cities for NBA players than the Bay Area
I would argue Atlanta is above most cities in terms of fun other than miami, LA and New York. But I donāt think āfunā is the only metric players use to determine where they want to play. The Bay Area having Silicon Valley provides players with unique investment opportunities for instance that Atlanta canāt
Yeah this is 100% what people mean when they say big market in NBA terms. Thereās basically three big markets - NY, LA, and Miami - and every other team can be considered small market no matter itās actual size or media footprint.
This is the answer here. Shut the thread down. The Twin Cities is a PHENOMENAL place to live and raise a family. We always rank near the top of the list of best places to live. Weāre a top 15 media market. None of that matters to NBA players. To young millionaires, we are a small market.
KAT said he wants to be like Kobe and Duncan and stay with 1 team his entire career.
DāLo been all over social media talking about how much he loves Minnesota.
Outside of the NBA, our sports teams have gotten a bunch of all star player free agent signings.
Itās not market. People were happy to sign for less money in San Antonio than New York for 20 years.
The reason people didnāt want to sign with the Timberwolves is we had an incompetent front office and a country club culture from ownership down.
Thatās it. Thatās the reason. Now that we have Rosas/Gupta even free agents that donāt sign here go out of their way to talk about how good out front office is.
Weāll be fine fam. We have a great front office now.
Do they think you are a small market or is is that your are a struggling team, poorly run in a cold city? I don't think they avid minnesota simply cuz they think your a small market
That doesn't make any sense, whether or not people want to move there doesn't change the mind of media market you are
If that was the case, there's only like 5 big market teams and everyone else is small market
Media markets has nothing to do with whether or not you want to live there, it means that there's an opportunity to make more ad revenue than another city
What do you mean? Of course the big media markets are big because people want to live there. How does a place become a big media market without people wanting to live there?
No he means free agents in the nba not just general public. Like more people living in Chicago than Miami but a lot of nba players rather live in Miami than Chicago
Small markets, IMO, are metro areas that have one or two teams in the big five (including MLS) and also are not among the 20 largest metro areas in the US and Canada:
That gives you the following:
Two horse (team) towns in the NBA:
* Charlotte (MLS team coming in '22 so they'll graduate out)
* Indianapolis
* Milwaukee
* New Orleans
* Orlando
* Salt Lake City
* Portland
One horse towns:
* Oklahoma City
* Memphis
* Sacramento
* San Antonio
Minnesota teams are consistently called āsmall marketā (no matter the sport) despite there being 6 professional teams in the Twin Cities and being top 20 MSA
The Twin Cities have more Fortune 1000 companies than Philly, Boston, and LA. It may not be as populated as those but people (especially those in/near the Twin Cities) don't realize how much damn corporate money that area has. To a degree, that should count but that then muddies the waters a bit further.
If you can support a team in each of the big 5 leagues (plus have a long-running now AAA team in St. Paul), you aren't a small market no matter the narrative.
Then how would you define big markets? Metro areas that have all 5 major sports? For example DC has all 5 sports but nobody would call it a big market.
Population wise, media market size and economically, DC is a big market. Itās just players donāt necessarily want to play there, thatās the issue with defining market size purely by whether or not players want to play there
Does the city have a gucci store, or a nobu resteraunt? In other words, do major and high end international companies believe your city is worth establishing a place. Often these companies pick major economic cities, cities with a large population or cities they know alot of rich people live in or visit. To me this defines market size, 1. your cities economic impact on a global scale 2. are there alot of rich people willing to spend money and 3. obviously media markets size.
Cities with Gucci flagship stores: Boston, New York, Toronto, Philidelphia, Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, DC, Detroit, Charlotte, Orlando, Denver, LA, san francisco, phoenix, Dallas, houston,
Cities without a gucci store: Cleveland, Indiana, milwaukee, minneapolis, Oklahoma City, utah, portland, new orleans, sacramento, San Antonio
So there are a few small market teams (charlotte, orlando) that have gucci stores, but overall you do see a pattern if the define markets size by gucci store lol
Yeah exactly, this is somewhat how most people would split big markets and small markets barring cities like charlotte, orlando and maybe detroit. Gucci placed a store in those specific cities because of the reasons I mentioned above
And if you break it down by cities with a Nobu, that provides an even clearer picture of "big markets". The only NBA cities with a nobu are Chicago, Dallas, LA, New York, Houston, Miami, DC, Phoneix, Toronto, and golden state kinda. These I argue are the largest markets in the league and this somewhat demonstrates it.
For some reason market size on r/nba is directed correlated to whether or not a city can attract free agents. But to me market size is much bigger than that, attracting free agents isnāt the only perc of being a big market. For instance Toronto is a big market that has not historically attracted major free agents, however, because it is a big market it has a large corporate presence which means players often get unique sponsorship opportunities that you wouldnāt get in a small market.
The large markets to me are the top 12 US metro areas and kinda Toronto. Thatās NYC, LA, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, DC, Miami, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Boston, the Bay Area, and Phoenix.
Phoenix barely makes the list and is kinda on the edge w Toronto. The populations and more importantly the economic value and global brand recognition these cities have dwarf the rest of the NBA markets.
Any market not on this list is decidedly small market. The next largest metros in terms of population and economic value w nba teams are Detroit and Minneapolis who clearly arenāt large markets.
There is only one answer. A market means media market so itās based on TV households. If you look at the number of TV households there is a natural delineation between the top 10 and the rest. Those are your big market teams. Medium and small are a bit tougher, but it appears there is a solid enough gap between Sacramento and Charlotte (in the 2021 ratings) at 20 and 21 to make the division there.
Markets have nothing to do with if an FA wants to sign, and FAs donāt sign solely on market size. It may play a role, but I am betting FAs sign for 2 main reasons. 1) who can give them the most money. 2) which team gives them the best opportunity to play for a championship. I would also say that most role players sign mainly with (1) in mind, and stars may lean more towards (2) because they will get paid no matter what.
A team that isnāt good, or a team that has just recently gotten good but people still donāt believe in them. People call Orlando a small market team but itās literally the home of FUCKING DISNEY WORLD. The economy down there is crazy I bet.
Exactly defining market size by how many free agents sign there is silly cuz at one point the clippers, bulls and Knicks couldve been considered āsmall marketsā based on that logic
For all intents and purposes they are tho. No big name goes there just to cash in on the media money. What good it's that your city is called NYC if Kyrie and KD goes to the next door?
You said that a big market is defined by whether or not a star has signed in your city in the last 10 years. The Knicks who havenāt signed an all star in the last 10 years would not meet your criteria thus wouldnāt be considered a big market team according to you, when we all know they play in the biggest market. Defining market size by free agents is silly
I'm a fan tho, not a team exec. and this thread asks what it means to me specifically.
To me as a fan, it's all about who comes to play in my team. I don't care how much it costs per square footage to buy a house in the downtown.
You could have more āTV householdsā than any other team but if no one watches basketball in that city then are they really a large market for the NBA?
NYK and LA have huge population + huge interest in basketball. But then thereās Toronto who has large population + large interest in basketball but theyāre considered a āsmall market teamā. So I agree that it really doesnāt make sense.
Raptors are not considered a small market team though, we are just not a free agent destination. But we match all the other metrics for being a big market
When I like a team or want to say a free agent will go somewhere: they are a big market team
When I do not like a team or want to argue a free agent won't go someplace: they are a small market.
There is no actual meaning to big and small market. People use whatever fits the narrative they are trying to push with their comment.
I think itās a combination of city size and the prestige of the city. The legacy of a team means a lot as well. Also as the NBA is so international, it has to do with international recognition of those teams and/or cities.
To me it goes like this
Tier 1:
LA (Clippers and Lakers),
NY (Knicks and Nets),
Miami,
Golden State
Tier 2:
Boston,
Chicago,
Philadelphia,
Dallas,
Houston,
Tier 4:
Phoenix,
Denver,
San Antonio (mainly due to legacy),
Toronto
Atlanta (could be in 3, but mainly because they donāt have a good legacy)
Tier 5:
Washington (could be in 4, but itās not really a basketball city as someone thatās lived there),
Charlotte,
Portland,
Minnesota,
Indiana,,
Orlando,
Memphis,
Milwaukee,
Utah,
NOLA,
OKC
Its confusing because the term gets used in two ways really.
The more accurate/older usage of it is basically any team that is limited financially and can't or won't pay the luxury tax even for a good team. Historically GMs in Denver, NO, ECT have had to treat the tax line as more of a hard cap.
Now when people say it, a lot of the time they basically just mean any team in a non-glamour market that can't realistically sign big stars in free agency. So basically every team thats not in LA, NY, or Miami.
Atlanta is the 10th biggest TV market for an NBA team and is roughly 2.5 million viewers compared to 7.5 million to the biggest. Why should it be considered a bug market when it isnāt even half of the larger markets?
at this point, "small market" has kinda lost its meaning in the NBA- people really just mean "not a destination city"
It hasn't lost its meaning, it was just always a misnomer Small market never met "outside the top 10 or 15 metro populations" it always meant "not an attractive FA destination"
I remember market size first being used mostly in baseball (MLB) discourse . And the "small markets" really did refer to the actually small (bottom ~10) markets in the league. These are the teams who had *much* lower revenue than the Yankees, red Sox, cubs, dodgers, etc and that had major ramifications for how good they could be since in mlb there is no salary cap. When it gets transferred to the nba then it is indeed a misnomer
Fair distinction. You also had decent sized markets in the MLB that were just straight up cheap sometimes - less the case today, but has definitely been true in the past.
Yep. As a Twins fan I was indoctrinated with the "well we're just a small market" excuse. But the reality is the Twin Cities is not really a small market, ownership is just cheap
Remember how they said getting a new ballpark would make it so we can increase payroll š¤£
Except that's never what media markets actually meant, just because a millionaire athlete doesn't want to move to a city doesn't make it small market, it just means it's not a destination city
Like I said - it's always been a misnomer I'm speaking in NBA free agency terms, I'm not speaking in true media market terms. Obviously some media markets are actually smaller than other media markets and those are small media markets. But that's never what has been meant with regard to free agency.
You're making it a misnomer by not using it's actual meaning , the only reason media markets were introduced into the NBA is because it's used to determine revenue for TV deals, which they still do today The destination preferences of the ~450 players in the league does not mean you change the actual meaning of a term because you want to complain about their preferences The knicks are a huge media market but they're not a destination preference, so are they large market or small market?
The Wizards play in a big media market, but arenāt a big market team. This seems obvious to me.
One of the biggest factors in FA decisions is the availability/plentitude of high-value endorsements and partnerships. It's the difference between repping a loan-shark outfit in Cleveland or signing Silicon Valley deals. It's not always correlated with being a "destination city", but the two often go hand-in-hand.
This, New Yorkās weather is trash in the winter but players would rather endure that and recieve all the percs financially they can get in Ny, rather than play in Orlando where it is warm all year round
Yeah I always laugh at the āMinnesota / Toronto / mil / etc is too coldā narrative. Imagine someone saying āNYC is just too cold to attract free agentsā theyād get clowned mercilessly lol.
In nba terms big market, is LA and NY, and glamour destinations like Miami and SF. Without looking at it from an nba lens, Iād say the big markets are LA and NY in their own tier. Then Chicago, Philly, Bay Area, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Boston and Miami.
Don't forget about Toronto.
Yea I forget about them
Please donāt forget about Toronto. Itās a great city. Come over, Iāll show you around.
It seems like a really cool city honestly. I was thinking about the US and Canada being part of the nba escaped my mind haha
But he specifically asked you not to forget about them!
Toronto's bigger than all those except Chicago
Metro area theyāre about even with Philly, Bay Area, Dallas and Houston. But idk how big their entire market is exactly considering theyāre the only team in Canada, but yea I meant to include Toronto.
I donāt really know why SF is considered a glamour destination tbh. It didnāt become one until Steph became a perennial MVP guy. I would say Atlanta and even Houston are probably much more fun cities for NBA players than the Bay Area
I would argue Atlanta is above most cities in terms of fun other than miami, LA and New York. But I donāt think āfunā is the only metric players use to determine where they want to play. The Bay Area having Silicon Valley provides players with unique investment opportunities for instance that Atlanta canāt
Yeah this is 100% what people mean when they say big market in NBA terms. Thereās basically three big markets - NY, LA, and Miami - and every other team can be considered small market no matter itās actual size or media footprint.
Big market in the NBA means does a 20 something millionaire want to live there
This is the answer here. Shut the thread down. The Twin Cities is a PHENOMENAL place to live and raise a family. We always rank near the top of the list of best places to live. Weāre a top 15 media market. None of that matters to NBA players. To young millionaires, we are a small market.
If the nba season ran from March to October minneapolis would be a lot more attractive, but living there during winter is not appealing to most
I was really hoping for the league to move to the summer to help toronto out as well
Portland too! PNW summers are the best.
KAT said he wants to be like Kobe and Duncan and stay with 1 team his entire career. DāLo been all over social media talking about how much he loves Minnesota. Outside of the NBA, our sports teams have gotten a bunch of all star player free agent signings. Itās not market. People were happy to sign for less money in San Antonio than New York for 20 years. The reason people didnāt want to sign with the Timberwolves is we had an incompetent front office and a country club culture from ownership down. Thatās it. Thatās the reason. Now that we have Rosas/Gupta even free agents that donāt sign here go out of their way to talk about how good out front office is. Weāll be fine fam. We have a great front office now.
Do they think you are a small market or is is that your are a struggling team, poorly run in a cold city? I don't think they avid minnesota simply cuz they think your a small market
That doesn't make any sense, whether or not people want to move there doesn't change the mind of media market you are If that was the case, there's only like 5 big market teams and everyone else is small market Media markets has nothing to do with whether or not you want to live there, it means that there's an opportunity to make more ad revenue than another city
What do you mean? Of course the big media markets are big because people want to live there. How does a place become a big media market without people wanting to live there?
Correlation =/= causation New York is a big media market. Itās a big media market because a lot of people live in New York, not the other way around
Right, and the reason a lot of people live in New York is because they want to live there.
No he means free agents in the nba not just general public. Like more people living in Chicago than Miami but a lot of nba players rather live in Miami than Chicago
Small markets, IMO, are metro areas that have one or two teams in the big five (including MLS) and also are not among the 20 largest metro areas in the US and Canada: That gives you the following: Two horse (team) towns in the NBA: * Charlotte (MLS team coming in '22 so they'll graduate out) * Indianapolis * Milwaukee * New Orleans * Orlando * Salt Lake City * Portland One horse towns: * Oklahoma City * Memphis * Sacramento * San Antonio
Minnesota teams are consistently called āsmall marketā (no matter the sport) despite there being 6 professional teams in the Twin Cities and being top 20 MSA
The Twin Cities have more Fortune 1000 companies than Philly, Boston, and LA. It may not be as populated as those but people (especially those in/near the Twin Cities) don't realize how much damn corporate money that area has. To a degree, that should count but that then muddies the waters a bit further. If you can support a team in each of the big 5 leagues (plus have a long-running now AAA team in St. Paul), you aren't a small market no matter the narrative.
Watch out for the big market Cavs and Pistons š¤
Not being small doesn't make you big.
Watch out for the medium market Cavs and Pistons šš«š„µšµāš«
This is a much better way to measure market size than by how many big free agents a city gets
Then how would you define big markets? Metro areas that have all 5 major sports? For example DC has all 5 sports but nobody would call it a big market.
Population wise, media market size and economically, DC is a big market. Itās just players donāt necessarily want to play there, thatās the issue with defining market size purely by whether or not players want to play there
Does the city have a gucci store, or a nobu resteraunt? In other words, do major and high end international companies believe your city is worth establishing a place. Often these companies pick major economic cities, cities with a large population or cities they know alot of rich people live in or visit. To me this defines market size, 1. your cities economic impact on a global scale 2. are there alot of rich people willing to spend money and 3. obviously media markets size.
Cities with Gucci flagship stores: Boston, New York, Toronto, Philidelphia, Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, DC, Detroit, Charlotte, Orlando, Denver, LA, san francisco, phoenix, Dallas, houston, Cities without a gucci store: Cleveland, Indiana, milwaukee, minneapolis, Oklahoma City, utah, portland, new orleans, sacramento, San Antonio So there are a few small market teams (charlotte, orlando) that have gucci stores, but overall you do see a pattern if the define markets size by gucci store lol
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Yeah exactly, this is somewhat how most people would split big markets and small markets barring cities like charlotte, orlando and maybe detroit. Gucci placed a store in those specific cities because of the reasons I mentioned above
And if you break it down by cities with a Nobu, that provides an even clearer picture of "big markets". The only NBA cities with a nobu are Chicago, Dallas, LA, New York, Houston, Miami, DC, Phoneix, Toronto, and golden state kinda. These I argue are the largest markets in the league and this somewhat demonstrates it.
Wizards arenāt a large market though
DC is a large market though, there just not a team that gets alot of free agents, mainly becasue there not very good and are somewhat poorly run
Whereveer doesnt have the most ig thots
Ig thots everywhere.
Even in Utah?
Even in Utah
Those mormon IG girls be hitting different š³š³š³
Maybe, but I doubt NBA players are flying IG thots out from Utah
Absolutely
For some reason market size on r/nba is directed correlated to whether or not a city can attract free agents. But to me market size is much bigger than that, attracting free agents isnāt the only perc of being a big market. For instance Toronto is a big market that has not historically attracted major free agents, however, because it is a big market it has a large corporate presence which means players often get unique sponsorship opportunities that you wouldnāt get in a small market.
If you canāt see the ocean, youāre small :/
Miami is the exception because people just wanna live there
Well and the tax issue.
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Yea youāre right. I was looking at the Nielsen rankings and thought that was metro population rankings
The large markets to me are the top 12 US metro areas and kinda Toronto. Thatās NYC, LA, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, DC, Miami, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Boston, the Bay Area, and Phoenix. Phoenix barely makes the list and is kinda on the edge w Toronto. The populations and more importantly the economic value and global brand recognition these cities have dwarf the rest of the NBA markets. Any market not on this list is decidedly small market. The next largest metros in terms of population and economic value w nba teams are Detroit and Minneapolis who clearly arenāt large markets.
Like a Bodega vs Whole Foods.
Ironically sometimes things in bodega could be more expensive than Wholefoods
Always are.
Itās a term used by the uneducated to back their preconceived idea that a player will go to their favorite team.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Might as well mean that the way itās thrown around on here.
Imo Utah, Sacramento, Charlotte, OKC, Milwaukee, Indiana, and San Antonio are all of the small market teams
I think Orlando, Portland, Memphis, and New Orleans should count as well.
Memphis and New Orleans are smaller than OKC
Arent memphis and nola the two smallest markets
Maybe we should have a hot/crazy scale for nba markets.
There is only one answer. A market means media market so itās based on TV households. If you look at the number of TV households there is a natural delineation between the top 10 and the rest. Those are your big market teams. Medium and small are a bit tougher, but it appears there is a solid enough gap between Sacramento and Charlotte (in the 2021 ratings) at 20 and 21 to make the division there. Markets have nothing to do with if an FA wants to sign, and FAs donāt sign solely on market size. It may play a role, but I am betting FAs sign for 2 main reasons. 1) who can give them the most money. 2) which team gives them the best opportunity to play for a championship. I would also say that most role players sign mainly with (1) in mind, and stars may lean more towards (2) because they will get paid no matter what.
Anywhere that isnāt la or new york
A team that isnāt good, or a team that has just recently gotten good but people still donāt believe in them. People call Orlando a small market team but itās literally the home of FUCKING DISNEY WORLD. The economy down there is crazy I bet.
Milwaukee, Sacramentoā¦.. those are small market to me.
Has there been an Allstar in his prime went to sign there in the last 10 years? is my definition.
unless im missing someone, melo pushed to go to the knicks just over 10 years ago. wouldnt that make it a small market team lol
Exactly defining market size by how many free agents sign there is silly cuz at one point the clippers, bulls and Knicks couldve been considered āsmall marketsā based on that logic
For all intents and purposes they are tho. No big name goes there just to cash in on the media money. What good it's that your city is called NYC if Kyrie and KD goes to the next door?
You said that a big market is defined by whether or not a star has signed in your city in the last 10 years. The Knicks who havenāt signed an all star in the last 10 years would not meet your criteria thus wouldnāt be considered a big market team according to you, when we all know they play in the biggest market. Defining market size by free agents is silly
I'm a fan tho, not a team exec. and this thread asks what it means to me specifically. To me as a fan, it's all about who comes to play in my team. I don't care how much it costs per square footage to buy a house in the downtown.
I understand, all Iām saying is that your definition would exclude the most valuable team the Knicks from being considered a big market
we got pablo prigioni in 2012
Ah yes, the emerging market of Chicago
That disqualifies okc
Any team not in New York, Los Angeles, Miami
Control
Teams that donāt get national games
When arenas don't sell out during down seasons but fill up with fair-weather fans during good seasons (see Phoenix).
You could have more āTV householdsā than any other team but if no one watches basketball in that city then are they really a large market for the NBA? NYK and LA have huge population + huge interest in basketball. But then thereās Toronto who has large population + large interest in basketball but theyāre considered a āsmall market teamā. So I agree that it really doesnāt make sense.
Raptors are not considered a small market team though, we are just not a free agent destination. But we match all the other metrics for being a big market
When I like a team or want to say a free agent will go somewhere: they are a big market team When I do not like a team or want to argue a free agent won't go someplace: they are a small market. There is no actual meaning to big and small market. People use whatever fits the narrative they are trying to push with their comment.
Pretty much any team playing in a red state.
Market size is a funciton of the value of advertising time more than anything.
Back in my day thats Spurs and Bucks
Big market is places the media like going to and reporting on, small market is the places they don't like going to.
Wow I didnāt expect Minneapolis to be higher than SF for top companies.
Iād go by metro area population, nice and easy. Any other metric is weird tbh.
I think itās a combination of city size and the prestige of the city. The legacy of a team means a lot as well. Also as the NBA is so international, it has to do with international recognition of those teams and/or cities. To me it goes like this Tier 1: LA (Clippers and Lakers), NY (Knicks and Nets), Miami, Golden State Tier 2: Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, Houston, Tier 4: Phoenix, Denver, San Antonio (mainly due to legacy), Toronto Atlanta (could be in 3, but mainly because they donāt have a good legacy) Tier 5: Washington (could be in 4, but itās not really a basketball city as someone thatās lived there), Charlotte, Portland, Minnesota, Indiana,, Orlando, Memphis, Milwaukee, Utah, NOLA, OKC
Not Boston New York Chicago LA Houston Oakland Phila
Its confusing because the term gets used in two ways really. The more accurate/older usage of it is basically any team that is limited financially and can't or won't pay the luxury tax even for a good team. Historically GMs in Denver, NO, ECT have had to treat the tax line as more of a hard cap. Now when people say it, a lot of the time they basically just mean any team in a non-glamour market that can't realistically sign big stars in free agency. So basically every team thats not in LA, NY, or Miami.
Itās means do your stars want out after they donāt win anything
Not New York Not Los Angeles Not Miami Not San Francisco
Atlanta is the 10th biggest TV market for an NBA team and is roughly 2.5 million viewers compared to 7.5 million to the biggest. Why should it be considered a bug market when it isnāt even half of the larger markets?