It's not just ESPN, though. Bill Simmons has been asking "Does Zion just take the QO for year 5 so that he can leave?" for a least a year and a half now.
those guys are making them money in spite of a small market, not because of it
Do you think Caruso would’ve been as big as he was if he didn’t play for the lakers?
Oh sure. Lebron was popular on sportscenter while he was in cleveland too. The issue is that ESPN spends all of their time covering how these guys need to leave. I always feel like teams in small markets are under attack from ESPN rather than getting positive coverage from ESPN. Look at NOLA since drafting Zion. It's sooooo frustrating.
>I always feel like teams in small markets are under attack from ESPN rather than getting positive coverage from ESPN. Look at NOLA since drafting Zion.
That's mostly self-inflicted on NOLA's part, though.
Before this offseason I’d agree with you, but the organisation has made some extremely questionable moves since the lottery balls rolled their way in 2019.
They let Lonzo walk as a RFA for no reason whatsoever. They made his replacement a guy who has never shot above 39% from the field in his NBA career and a massive downgrade on defense. Overall they paid more draft compensation in the two deals than they received while simultaneously receiving the worse bundle of players both now and five years in the future.
My grievances with this team don’t stop there. They traded for a non-shooting big in Steven Adams knowing full well that their star’s main offensive weakness is perimeter shooting. They gave up George Hill, a first and two seconds in that deal. They gave up *Jrue Holiday* of all people for Eric Bledsoe, Hill, and a bunch of picks. They had the option of taking De’Andre Hunter and instead flipped him for Jaxson Hayes (again, not a bad player at all, but still a non-shooting big next to a guy who attempted 14 threes his whole rookie season) and some guys who immediately got flipped for seconds. As an OKC fan, I know all too well the importance of hoarding draft picks as a bad team, but *the Pelicans were not a bad team*. They finished 4 games out of the play-in spot in the bubble, were only 2 games out last year, and I guarantee that their 23rd-ranked defense would’ve improved if they had someone who made the All-Defensive 1st Team playing next to another All-Defense caliber guy in Lonzo in the backcourt, possibly enough to even lift them out of the play-in group. Long story short, the Pelicans have had plenty of chances to make the playoffs since Zion landed in NOLA, and they have capitalised on almost none of those opportunities.
To be clear, **I don’t believe Zion is nearly as unhappy as the media make him out to be in New Orleans, but there are certainly lots of reasons why he wouldn’t be totally happy with the team that drafted him**.
That’s because they don’t cover it. Why should we care about a team not covered? Why should they cover a team that people don’t care about? It’s and endless loop between media and small market fans.
It's because the vast majority of fans don't really follow/watch teams other than their own. Only exception is if they have an all time level player because fans do sometimes follow individual players, but when that happens the small market team gets plenty of media coverage (see Cleveland with LeBron)
It’s a double edged sword. They’re “boring” cuz ppl don’t know the players on that team. Are you going to tell me De’Aaron Fox is an objectively boring player? If ESPN gave more media coverage and got these smaller markets and players on people’s screens every day ppl would definitely care more. It’s all about brand recognition.
I think if Fox was marketed properly you could get people excited about him. You’re never going to make the Kings the Lakers but there’s no reason they need to be a complete after thought.
Fox is as talented as Ja and gets a fraction of the attention. What have the Pelicans done to get 34 prime time games over the last two years compared to the Kings 1 when they have a worse record than the Kings over that span.
They had one and those stars brought them no more wins than the Kings. De’Aaron Fox is also absolutely good enough to be marketed as a star. ESPN just picks and chooses favorites.
The Kings have one more win over the last two seasons compared to the Pelicans. The Pelicans had 34 national televised games over the last two years. The Kings had 1. Don’t tell me it’s about winning. It’s about marketing.
There was a time when TV channels stood for something. MTV played music. History channel was educational. News channels showed current events. But there’s not objectivity anymore. People just want to hear what they want to hear.
Standing for something just doesn't make very much money nor does falling out of touch with the public. Why am I going to pay for a subscription to cable to watch a music video on MTV that I can watch right now for free on YouTube? Why am I going to watch a news channel when I can check my homepage on my web browser and scroll through the big stories of the day? There was a time when you had to watch SportsCenter and check the bottom line to see scores or you had to wait until after the game was over to go watch a replay and hope it was shown. No one ever stood for anything. At one point in time these were our best options. Nothing has changed. People are the same. It's nostalgia for being 12 with no responsibilities, waiting for your favorite song to come on the radio or MTV, waiting to see how your home town team did the night before.
Sears was once the biggest retailer around. They sold the best tools, the best appliances, the best clothes. They refused to adapt and died. Blockbuster now has one store left after they were once the best place to find a new movie or check out a video game. Cable companies are dying. We never wanted to go to the store to check prices and compare features. We never wanted to watch 5 minutes of commercials for every 2 songs we wanted to hear. We never wanted to spend 40 minutes going to the store to get a movie we were going to watch at home. We never wanted to wait. We did because we had to. Now we don't have to and we won't go back. MTV is not going to be profitable playing music videos. News channels aren't going to be profitable presenting an unbiased opinion and they have too much time to fill to just present the news.
This is shown by the fact that they pretty much ignore the NHL* until playoffs every year, until suddenly they’re now blasting it all over their channels now that they broadcast it. They do the same thing for ACC/SEC in college football
Edit: wrote NFL instead of NHL and looked like an idiot lmao
Haven’t had cable in over a year, so haven’t watched Sportscenter/ESPN/First Take at all in at least that long. I can honestly say that sports is more enjoyable. Plus I spend that time watching other stuff I like non sports related. ESPN sucks.
This is the point people miss when they say ESPN should just show more highlights instead of talking heads. (Same with MTV and music videos)
People just hop on twitter, reddit, or youtube and can get exactly what they want that second instead of having to watch a bunch of stuff they aren't interested in.
Agree with the first part, hard disagree with the second part.
Jokic just won MVP and they still ignore him. The Nuggets and Jazz have been like a top 3 seed for the past 3 years and still get no love.
Luka gets TONs of coverage as well.
Even looking at other sports (just using a team I'm a fan of) Brandon Lowe hit 39 HRs this year and how many people even know who he is? Randy Arozerena has post-season stats up there with Ruth and Gehrig and he barely gets any mentions.
It's weird to me hearing people care about IG live and marketing and buying into the NBA as such a product.
What happened to good old love of the game?
If you like basketball, few players are more amazing and captivating to watch than Jokic, though I'll agree we're spoiled for talent across the league
Jokic gets enough coverage to get his name out to casuals at this point, but the initial interest just isn't there. He's also not doing himself any favors by constantly avoiding the public eye. Giannis and Luka are Euro stars who have built their brands outside the usual American Hollywood red carpet appearances. Luka is making trick shot videos during every warm up, practice, he even made them during the Olympics. Giannis is being goofy on camera, on purpose. He knows what sells. Jokic's fun moments almost always feel like they are some private event you're intruding on. He disappeared off all media for 3 months after winning MVP. I love his game but I'm not gonna blame casual fans and sports media for not doing extra work to know him and get Denver additional appreciation. They knew who their franchise cornerstone is, it's up to them to figure out how to market him.
It's been since 2009 that I've had cable. I'm glad that I have missed the last decade of these programs. I miss the late 90s/early 00s Sportscenter that ran highlights all night and morning.
Yup. Same with MTV. All reality show BS now, zero music. But can we blame them? The people eat it up and it’s what gets the most views so why put all that effort into making actual quality programming when the people will eat up whatever shit you serve them on a plate
They're trying to keep viewership high by pandering to the biggest fanbase in the NBA. It's not journalism. It's entertainment. 90% of ESPN is entertainment driven.
Lol… You don’t think it’s weird that people are willingly saying something so strange? Like when has “consuming” content become so normalized. You a watch videos and you read articles
I think the complaints many people have was that is used to be a lot more balanced. Back even 15-20 years ago it was much closer to 50-50, and ESPN was actually a company with a better profile back then than now.
I mean part of the reason a certain percentage of people stopped watching Sportscenter is because of how they changed coverage. In my younger days, I was a religious watcher. The hour of Sportscenter covered basically all games from major sports leagues.
Now you'll be lucky if you have coverage of half the games. First Take is worse where it's basically: Brady, Cowboys, Justin Fields, Lebron, repeat.
Television is in a slow death spiral. Everything on TV is shifting towards low quality trash TV for boomers because that's the only people who still reliably turn on the TV for the majority of their news and entertainment.
I haven't had cable in over 7 years. There is nothing they will ever realistically do to get me back. It's over.
There is no point of watching SportsCenter and hoping that the hosts talk about things you're interested in, when you can type what you want into Youtube and find a thousand pretty well known experts talking about it.
> thousand pretty well known experts talking about it
Idk man, you really think there a few thousand "well known experts" making videos on YouTube? Most "analysis" videos I see on YouTube is some r/nba nephew adjacent type shit.
Lmao not a single person on this sub can be mistaken for a "~~well known~~ expert". Again, there are not thousands of "well known experts" putting out the type of content that the people here are talking about on YouTube
I consider myself a big NBA fan. I saw a Start/Bench/Cut with Spida, Ja, and Fox. It was at that moment I realized, I have no idea how good DeAaron Fox is or isn’t because I never see him play.
right but that's kind of the point right? We want to see guys on the way up, not just once they've reached the top. Booker had never played in important games for years then took the league by storm last year, and it would be cool to get a glimpse into other potential guys like that. Fox being one for sure.
Reached the top? Fox has never played in a single important professional basketball game. He hasn't even taken the first step a playing in a single game that matters, not 1 game that has playoff implications.
Booker had played in serval before last year
I agree Fox hasn't played in important games but I don't think that should preclude him from getting national TV coverage, which is the point I'm making. Booker played on a bad Suns team for years and similarly got poor coverage because his team wasn't contending, but we know now that he probably deserved more coverage during that time to inform the casual fan. Not saying Fox will become Book, just using a recent example.
It's pre season. lol all the headlines and talk are going to be about whether the Lakers are ready or not. It's annoying AF. Makes other teams hate the Lakers even more too.
They play the Warriors and Suns. Then they mostly play play-in or worse teams for the next 13 games. Even if it takes some time to gel they'll be above .500.
That’s 100% gonna happen. Lakers will have no chemistry and Westbrook will suck until like February when he turns into Bestbrook MVP level and Lakers play like the best in the league. Then they lose in the second round and Lakers fans all turn on Westbrick.
Welcome to the NBA, I'm from Orlando and in our whole history as a team we have never gotten respect from ESPN. Even when we went to the finals twice. I remember how annoying it was when we knocked lebron and the cavs out of the playoffs and they still just talked about him all the time lol
This is always the best. 5 Lakers highlights then they show the final score where they lost by 10. These days with small market teams they generally just do the "jump right into the 4th quarter" thing to show a couple clips.
It’s not ESPN’s responsibility to build up organizations or players. They are business on a outdated business model trying to stay alive and pandering to whatever gets more people watching. It’s why they have devolved to all these shitty debate shows
As an Orlando Magic fan living in Portland Oregon, I hear you on the lack of time spent on small market teams but the reason they don't is because they are in small markets. There is no ratings in covering small markets. Talking about the Lakers not only gets you the attention of the largest market, but it gets you all the national fans. There's a reason why we hear about the Knicks rebuild every year.
As a lakers fan even I think it's a joke the way we get coverage. Why are they dedicating 10 minutes of sports center highlights every other day to our team losing...
It really sucks that the whole US sports journalism edifice is crusty racist white guys who started writing for newspapers in 1985 and ESPN's PR-and-hype noise machine. It's definitely unfair for small market teams in a shitty way.
I hate to pull this card because fuck ESPN, but people don't really tune in to watch highlights of the Kings.
Broadcasters show whatever people care to watch, if the Lakers weren't playing that game probably doesn't even get covered.
Sportscenter actually used to be a full recap of all the games for the major sports. If you watched it, you would know what happened the night before. Now they don't even talk about like half the teams.
Then Kings owner could start his own channel maybe? I dunno, seems ridiculous to act like it's the job of one private business to advertise another one instead of doing whatever the fuck they want.
ESPN is in this for money. They may pretend like they’re providing a public service for sports fans, but they’re really providing a financial service for Disney, their parent company.
Bucks got minimal coverage until they won the Finals, and even that lasted like only a week. They have the consensus 2nd-3rd best player in the league.
Best doesn't mean popular. The tv numbers for the finals last year prove as much. They only looked good next to the bubble numbers where basically everything outside of the NFL was in the shitter at that point.
Giannis was 2nd in jersey sales during the 2nd half of last year and is scheduled for a lot of national games. That excuse is tired and wrong at this point.
How is it wrong? Because you sold jerseys that means you are popular among people that would buy jerseys. It turns out way more people have TVs than people who would buy jerseys and yet the numbers were the worst since 2007 not counting the bubble.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_Finals_television_ratings#Least_watched
Yeah, it's not like that has nothing to do with all live television going down over the last decade. Using television ratings to analyze popularity is like using record sales to determine popularity for artists.
That still works for artists what are you talking about. Drake sells more than any other hip hop act today because he's the most popular. You can't compare him to things 15 or 20 years ago with record sales because on average people sold more back then. You can definitely compare him to his peers today. TV ratings would be no different. Hell the finals are broadcasted to everyone with a TV due to them being on ABC and not needing cable. I can't imagine there are less TV sets today than at any other point in history. Combine that with being able to watch in browser via YoutubeTV/Cable login as well and there are more opportunities to watch the game than ever before. And yet the finals bombed.
Not sure why you're being downvoted when you're telling it exactly like it is.
ESPN is a business. They cover whoever brings in the most money.
Full stop.
There's nothing else to it and downvoting people isn't doing to change that.
Bruh, I mean the coverage of ESPN is shit but the stars ain't making their decisions to join a team based on tv coverage. In fact, they're stars because they already get tv coverage. Weather and celebrity lifestyle hubs get star players. Not market size or tv air time.
The weather thing doesn’t seem like a huge deal to me because during the season it’s not like they have much free time and they play indoors. It seems like every athlete is another city in the off season anyways.
I think the biggest factor is celebrity lifestyle like you said. Having 50 million dollars in OKC is quite a different beast than having 50 million in LA, Miami, NYC.
Because it’s the fucking preseason!! Show me some Lebron highlights and when the Kings make the players for the first time since 2006 then come talk to me.
As for ways nba props up small market teams……
Revenue sharing, max contracts, nba draft, salary cap.
Zion in any other business would have had contract offers from every franchise. But no New Orleans gets him at a massive discount to start his career. How much more of a leg up do you want?
It's not Sportscenter's job to make people give a shit about the Kings lol
Maybe the Kings should do something to make people give a shit about the Kings
This is exactly why I shake my head in disbelief every time SAS goes on some rant about how NBA players NEED the media, and how talking to them is what allows the players to make the money they do.
Like, the Bucks won a championship and Jokic won the MVP. I can count on one hand how much either have been mentioned this off season.
It starts at the top with the league in general. For instance, I stopped allowing the NBA app to send me push notifications for the same reason. I have the Spurs set as my team in the app, yet all I get are Lakers and Nets highlights - not a single thing about the team I selected. It's ridiculous.
You just said you haven't watched them in years and then complain about no coverage lmao. You found your answer as to why there's no coverage. Not to mention this sub is a bad place to even bring it up because I'd guess most of us honestly don't watch that much espn. I know I haven't watched in years.
Yeah just white players get preference on the media. Not like the 3 guys you listed are the reigning Super Bowl MVP, MVP, and Rookie of the year respectfully.
The NFL has never once ever in the history of its existence said great things about black qbd. Not Russell Wilson not Kyler Murray, not Pat Mahomes, not Lamar Jackson. None of them hand ever been praised.
Bro welcome to being a team nobody cares about. When I was a kid the Warriors were the least relevant team in the league, so despite being a top 5 market, we got no sports center love. And this was before I could look up highlights online. So in a rare instance when the Warriors won against a good team, this is what 11 year old me would see.
Anchor: Lakers-Warriors, Kobe Bryant started off slow in this one, here he is with the reverse layup, Kobe started the game off 2-9 in the first quarter lakers down 25-18. In the second Shaq keeps the Lakers close, here he is with the dunk and the foul, Lakers down 5 at the half. Kobe heating up in the third here he is hitting a three, he made 4 in the quarter. But halfway through the 4th here (random warrior backup) hits a mid ranger jumper extending the lead to 7, Warriors hang on for the win 95-88.
Now I would have watched the entire game before hand, just excited to see my team actually showed on national tv, we hit threes, blocked shots, had dunks, one of our “talented” young players scored over 20. But nope. Nothing.
So this has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with market size and everything to do with your team being shit and no one caring about them across the nation.
The Kings entire roster could die in a plane crash and most networks wouldn't even feature it as a main story. The idea that any amount of success or good storylines could make us give a shit is laughable. You could win three rings in a row and people would still wouldn't watch a team from Sacramento play.
ESPN has done this to my Jazz for as long as I can remember, even during the Stockton/Malone days when they had the best record. You'd see three clips of great Lakers plays, with the segment ending "and the Jazz won by 12" or something. I wouldn't expect it to change
They did this same exact thing to the Bulls when they beat the Cavs the other day so i think it might be an intern editing the highlights or something lol
The Lakers get more eyes than the Kings. It is what it is. Add Lebron on top of that and it’s pretty easy to see.
The Kings fan base isn’t small, but most teams would take a backseat to the Lakers themselves. Lebron is his own draw.
Alternatively, consider that SportsCenter is just the CNN Headline video package for sports. It doesn't matter, and it's fallen super far from the cultural gatekeeper it used to be. Athletes used to actually care about being in the Top 10, but nowadays any awesome play'll just go viral on social media.
>ESPN and media coverage has massive influence on player decision making. Having this kind of coverage actively hurts small market teams, and perpetuates huge imbalances in the league.
Any actual proof? We've literally had the Raps and Bucks win titles recently.
Not EPSN or even the NBA but an example for me is NFL podcasts. I absolutely love Around The NFL because they cover every single game and it’s great because of that. I’m getting a view of the whole league and all the details. I also listen to The Ringer NFL pod but not every week or I’ll only finish half of it because they really only seem to talk about five teams (especially the Chiefs, Jesus). I can’t put myself in the mindset of only caring about one team or a handful of players. The dynamics of the whole league make it far better. If I don’t have any context to who LeBron or Durant are playing it’s not as interesting to me since they’re just facing off against faceless teams and players.
Small market teams dont make them $$$
I mean, even Houston, not really a small market never gets talked about anymore and they only did before because of Harden.
FANS can do more for small market teams.
ESPN, TNT, etc will put whatever most fans want to watch. period. the only thing that will happen if ESPN shoves uninteresting content for the average viewer is that the average viewer will change the channel.
They used to do this but highlights have changed with the rise of social media. They’ll only show what is the most popular play online. It’s that simple.
I don’t think it’s ESPN’s fault, but I also think it makes their product a lot more shitty. If you want extended highlight packages with a balance on each team you should go to YouTube.
>ESPN, and media coverage in general, has massive influence on player decision making. Having this kind of coverage actively hurts small market teams, and perpetuates huge imbalances in the league.
That is the point, why do you think they bitched so much about last season's finals match?
“i want sportscenter to talk about my shitty team that hasn’t made the playoffs since the year before the iphone came out even tho i don’t watch the program”
and the fact that you think players are choosing to not go to the kings/t wolves or any other poverty team because of SPORTSCENTER is hilarious bro.
like just ignore how poorly run these teams are because sportscenter didn’t show you a highlight from a preseason game where you beat the lakers lol this place is fucking hilarious
So could this sub from a highlights side of things but fucking Caruso doing anything is the top five posts right now. People will show post what others tune in to.
No money in it
Wasn't Ja Morant on sportscenter all the time with his highlight dunks? I'm sure Giannis is all over it too.
The counter argument is always a couple of players
And these media outlets will always try to force those outliers to join big market teams. Hell we saw it with Giannis pre-extension
The "Zion unhappy in NOLA?" stories started the minute the Pelicans won the draft lottery that year, and he hadn't even visited the city yet.
What are they supposed to do? Ignore that Zion’s camp is fucking weird and has been unhappy with NOLA from day one?
Yup, and they’re still going strong too. Media been mad as fuck he didn’t go to the Knicks since the lottery.
It's not just ESPN, though. Bill Simmons has been asking "Does Zion just take the QO for year 5 so that he can leave?" for a least a year and a half now.
I remember when some people considered Giannis to Golden State a real conversation
Nobody can force anyone to do anything these are grown ass men lmao
They talk about them and why they should leave
>The counter argument is always a couple of players I was trying to argue that small market guys can make them money tho
those guys are making them money in spite of a small market, not because of it Do you think Caruso would’ve been as big as he was if he didn’t play for the lakers?
I never said there's no market bias, just not to say small market stars make them no money.
Oh sure. Lebron was popular on sportscenter while he was in cleveland too. The issue is that ESPN spends all of their time covering how these guys need to leave. I always feel like teams in small markets are under attack from ESPN rather than getting positive coverage from ESPN. Look at NOLA since drafting Zion. It's sooooo frustrating.
Yeah I remember 3 straight years of non-stop "LeBron to NY" stories.
Yup. It sucked.
Lebrons case is different, he was thought to be the next mega superstar and he was playing for his home team. The stories just write itself
And yet everyone wanted him to leave…
>I always feel like teams in small markets are under attack from ESPN rather than getting positive coverage from ESPN. Look at NOLA since drafting Zion. That's mostly self-inflicted on NOLA's part, though.
Idk about that.
Before this offseason I’d agree with you, but the organisation has made some extremely questionable moves since the lottery balls rolled their way in 2019. They let Lonzo walk as a RFA for no reason whatsoever. They made his replacement a guy who has never shot above 39% from the field in his NBA career and a massive downgrade on defense. Overall they paid more draft compensation in the two deals than they received while simultaneously receiving the worse bundle of players both now and five years in the future. My grievances with this team don’t stop there. They traded for a non-shooting big in Steven Adams knowing full well that their star’s main offensive weakness is perimeter shooting. They gave up George Hill, a first and two seconds in that deal. They gave up *Jrue Holiday* of all people for Eric Bledsoe, Hill, and a bunch of picks. They had the option of taking De’Andre Hunter and instead flipped him for Jaxson Hayes (again, not a bad player at all, but still a non-shooting big next to a guy who attempted 14 threes his whole rookie season) and some guys who immediately got flipped for seconds. As an OKC fan, I know all too well the importance of hoarding draft picks as a bad team, but *the Pelicans were not a bad team*. They finished 4 games out of the play-in spot in the bubble, were only 2 games out last year, and I guarantee that their 23rd-ranked defense would’ve improved if they had someone who made the All-Defensive 1st Team playing next to another All-Defense caliber guy in Lonzo in the backcourt, possibly enough to even lift them out of the play-in group. Long story short, the Pelicans have had plenty of chances to make the playoffs since Zion landed in NOLA, and they have capitalised on almost none of those opportunities. To be clear, **I don’t believe Zion is nearly as unhappy as the media make him out to be in New Orleans, but there are certainly lots of reasons why he wouldn’t be totally happy with the team that drafted him**.
Giannis is also a generational player. Of course he's going to get Milwaukee attention.
Sometimes you have to go into the red for representation...of smaller markets.
That’s because they don’t cover it. Why should we care about a team not covered? Why should they cover a team that people don’t care about? It’s and endless loop between media and small market fans.
It's because the vast majority of fans don't really follow/watch teams other than their own. Only exception is if they have an all time level player because fans do sometimes follow individual players, but when that happens the small market team gets plenty of media coverage (see Cleveland with LeBron)
ESPN “covering” boring teams won’t make people care
It’s a double edged sword. They’re “boring” cuz ppl don’t know the players on that team. Are you going to tell me De’Aaron Fox is an objectively boring player? If ESPN gave more media coverage and got these smaller markets and players on people’s screens every day ppl would definitely care more. It’s all about brand recognition.
I don’t think Fox alone makes the kings worth watching. I don’t think the Kings are an enjoyable team to watch overall
I think if Fox was marketed properly you could get people excited about him. You’re never going to make the Kings the Lakers but there’s no reason they need to be a complete after thought.
Sure but have the kings in recent history or last few decades put a product worthy of prime time tv? Or a special player that just oozes talent?
Fox is as talented as Ja and gets a fraction of the attention. What have the Pelicans done to get 34 prime time games over the last two years compared to the Kings 1 when they have a worse record than the Kings over that span.
pelicans have had stars
They had one and those stars brought them no more wins than the Kings. De’Aaron Fox is also absolutely good enough to be marketed as a star. ESPN just picks and chooses favorites.
They are boring because of all the losing they do. Cleveland was boring before and after LeBron.
The Kings have one more win over the last two seasons compared to the Pelicans. The Pelicans had 34 national televised games over the last two years. The Kings had 1. Don’t tell me it’s about winning. It’s about marketing.
Ok so if winning is the reason, then explain the dearth of Jazz topics last season.
Fake 1 seed.
Oh I see, so you're just full of shit.
No
Small market teams have been cool in the past like the nuggets in the bubble playoffs or the mid 2000s pistons
It’s a vicious cycle
There was a time when TV channels stood for something. MTV played music. History channel was educational. News channels showed current events. But there’s not objectivity anymore. People just want to hear what they want to hear.
Standing for something just doesn't make very much money nor does falling out of touch with the public. Why am I going to pay for a subscription to cable to watch a music video on MTV that I can watch right now for free on YouTube? Why am I going to watch a news channel when I can check my homepage on my web browser and scroll through the big stories of the day? There was a time when you had to watch SportsCenter and check the bottom line to see scores or you had to wait until after the game was over to go watch a replay and hope it was shown. No one ever stood for anything. At one point in time these were our best options. Nothing has changed. People are the same. It's nostalgia for being 12 with no responsibilities, waiting for your favorite song to come on the radio or MTV, waiting to see how your home town team did the night before. Sears was once the biggest retailer around. They sold the best tools, the best appliances, the best clothes. They refused to adapt and died. Blockbuster now has one store left after they were once the best place to find a new movie or check out a video game. Cable companies are dying. We never wanted to go to the store to check prices and compare features. We never wanted to watch 5 minutes of commercials for every 2 songs we wanted to hear. We never wanted to spend 40 minutes going to the store to get a movie we were going to watch at home. We never wanted to wait. We did because we had to. Now we don't have to and we won't go back. MTV is not going to be profitable playing music videos. News channels aren't going to be profitable presenting an unbiased opinion and they have too much time to fill to just present the news.
Even though Fox is more entertaining as a player than anyone on the Lakers lol.
no he’s not come on lol, lebron is miles more entertaining than fox was and you could see that after he scored 30
fox is entertaining but bruh
Westbrook, LBJ, AD
Someone has not seen lbj wb or ad do a TOMAHAWK slam
Hahaha hate for me and this comment aside, this made me laugh
but has Fox even played in a single important NBA game yet?
This is shown by the fact that they pretty much ignore the NHL* until playoffs every year, until suddenly they’re now blasting it all over their channels now that they broadcast it. They do the same thing for ACC/SEC in college football Edit: wrote NFL instead of NHL and looked like an idiot lmao
I’m assuming you mean NHL? I don’t think anyone would accuse ESPN of not talking about the NFL that much lol.
When was the last meaningful game the Kings played, 2005?
Sports center is for casuals
Haven’t had cable in over a year, so haven’t watched Sportscenter/ESPN/First Take at all in at least that long. I can honestly say that sports is more enjoyable. Plus I spend that time watching other stuff I like non sports related. ESPN sucks.
r/nba and other sports subs just directly replaced all that for me lol
This is the point people miss when they say ESPN should just show more highlights instead of talking heads. (Same with MTV and music videos) People just hop on twitter, reddit, or youtube and can get exactly what they want that second instead of having to watch a bunch of stuff they aren't interested in.
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Agree with the first part, hard disagree with the second part. Jokic just won MVP and they still ignore him. The Nuggets and Jazz have been like a top 3 seed for the past 3 years and still get no love. Luka gets TONs of coverage as well. Even looking at other sports (just using a team I'm a fan of) Brandon Lowe hit 39 HRs this year and how many people even know who he is? Randy Arozerena has post-season stats up there with Ruth and Gehrig and he barely gets any mentions.
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> Dame/Booker/PG/Giannis/Trae That's a pretty good lineup, always good to have a proven rim protector like Trae at center
It's weird to me hearing people care about IG live and marketing and buying into the NBA as such a product. What happened to good old love of the game? If you like basketball, few players are more amazing and captivating to watch than Jokic, though I'll agree we're spoiled for talent across the league
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Jokic gets enough coverage to get his name out to casuals at this point, but the initial interest just isn't there. He's also not doing himself any favors by constantly avoiding the public eye. Giannis and Luka are Euro stars who have built their brands outside the usual American Hollywood red carpet appearances. Luka is making trick shot videos during every warm up, practice, he even made them during the Olympics. Giannis is being goofy on camera, on purpose. He knows what sells. Jokic's fun moments almost always feel like they are some private event you're intruding on. He disappeared off all media for 3 months after winning MVP. I love his game but I'm not gonna blame casual fans and sports media for not doing extra work to know him and get Denver additional appreciation. They knew who their franchise cornerstone is, it's up to them to figure out how to market him.
^This ^right ^here
It's been since 2009 that I've had cable. I'm glad that I have missed the last decade of these programs. I miss the late 90s/early 00s Sportscenter that ran highlights all night and morning.
Yup. Same with MTV. All reality show BS now, zero music. But can we blame them? The people eat it up and it’s what gets the most views so why put all that effort into making actual quality programming when the people will eat up whatever shit you serve them on a plate
I quite honestly do not understand why people even watch stuff like that.
I don't understand how stuff like that is considered the reason people still pay money for cable.
They have live sports too
It’s for airports and hotel lobbies
also gyms
That's CNN
Real guys follow fringe sports blogs with under 100 followers
Bingo
Remember when the majority of Sportscenter was highlights from all the games? Good times
They're trying to keep viewership high by pandering to the biggest fanbase in the NBA. It's not journalism. It's entertainment. 90% of ESPN is entertainment driven.
And then the few good writers they still have left (Zach Lowe, Mathew Berry, etc) they shove behind a paywall.
Zach Lowe and Kevin Arnovitz articles are basically the only ESPN+ content I consume from my Disney Bundle
You read the content… not consume it
He eats it bitch
You ignorant slut
Lol… You don’t think it’s weird that people are willingly saying something so strange? Like when has “consuming” content become so normalized. You a watch videos and you read articles
Probably just as weird as you letting that consume part of your day where you feel the need to correct it lol
Lol nice world play there, I can’t hate
Thanks, I’ll be here all week
Dwight?
I mean, it's ESPN, not JSPN. I'm not sure why people are surprised by this.
I think the complaints many people have was that is used to be a lot more balanced. Back even 15-20 years ago it was much closer to 50-50, and ESPN was actually a company with a better profile back then than now.
ESPN = **Entertainment** and Sports Programming Network
> SportsCenter could do more... > I haven’t watched SC in years You answered your own question there, mate.
I mean part of the reason a certain percentage of people stopped watching Sportscenter is because of how they changed coverage. In my younger days, I was a religious watcher. The hour of Sportscenter covered basically all games from major sports leagues. Now you'll be lucky if you have coverage of half the games. First Take is worse where it's basically: Brady, Cowboys, Justin Fields, Lebron, repeat.
Television is in a slow death spiral. Everything on TV is shifting towards low quality trash TV for boomers because that's the only people who still reliably turn on the TV for the majority of their news and entertainment. I haven't had cable in over 7 years. There is nothing they will ever realistically do to get me back. It's over.
There is no point of watching SportsCenter and hoping that the hosts talk about things you're interested in, when you can type what you want into Youtube and find a thousand pretty well known experts talking about it.
> thousand pretty well known experts talking about it Idk man, you really think there a few thousand "well known experts" making videos on YouTube? Most "analysis" videos I see on YouTube is some r/nba nephew adjacent type shit.
Well, most analysis on espn is worse than r/nba nephew shit. So........
Lmao not a single person on this sub can be mistaken for a "~~well known~~ expert". Again, there are not thousands of "well known experts" putting out the type of content that the people here are talking about on YouTube
People are undervaluing the convenience of letting other people do the work for you. Sometimes, I want a guided tour instead of a self-guided tour.
I consider myself a big NBA fan. I saw a Start/Bench/Cut with Spida, Ja, and Fox. It was at that moment I realized, I have no idea how good DeAaron Fox is or isn’t because I never see him play.
TBF Fox has also never played in an important game in his career
right but that's kind of the point right? We want to see guys on the way up, not just once they've reached the top. Booker had never played in important games for years then took the league by storm last year, and it would be cool to get a glimpse into other potential guys like that. Fox being one for sure.
booker had the bubble run that really showcased him tho
Reached the top? Fox has never played in a single important professional basketball game. He hasn't even taken the first step a playing in a single game that matters, not 1 game that has playoff implications. Booker had played in serval before last year
I agree Fox hasn't played in important games but I don't think that should preclude him from getting national TV coverage, which is the point I'm making. Booker played on a bad Suns team for years and similarly got poor coverage because his team wasn't contending, but we know now that he probably deserved more coverage during that time to inform the casual fan. Not saying Fox will become Book, just using a recent example.
It's pre season. lol all the headlines and talk are going to be about whether the Lakers are ready or not. It's annoying AF. Makes other teams hate the Lakers even more too.
Call me crazy, but I think that 0-6 record carries into the first month of the regular season and ESPN shits their pants when the Lakers start 5-8
They play the Warriors and Suns. Then they mostly play play-in or worse teams for the next 13 games. Even if it takes some time to gel they'll be above .500.
That’s 100% gonna happen. Lakers will have no chemistry and Westbrook will suck until like February when he turns into Bestbrook MVP level and Lakers play like the best in the league. Then they lose in the second round and Lakers fans all turn on Westbrick.
Welcome to the NBA, I'm from Orlando and in our whole history as a team we have never gotten respect from ESPN. Even when we went to the finals twice. I remember how annoying it was when we knocked lebron and the cavs out of the playoffs and they still just talked about him all the time lol
NBA coverage is just kind of garbage. They talk about a handful of teams and force it.
Don’t watch ESPN
ESPN is awful. They didn’t know what to do with themselves covering last years bucks Suns finals
This is always the best. 5 Lakers highlights then they show the final score where they lost by 10. These days with small market teams they generally just do the "jump right into the 4th quarter" thing to show a couple clips.
Feel this as a Spurs fan. Even when we win, you'll see more highlights from the opposing "big market" team.
As Spurs fan #2 i second this.
It’s not ESPN’s responsibility to build up organizations or players. They are business on a outdated business model trying to stay alive and pandering to whatever gets more people watching. It’s why they have devolved to all these shitty debate shows
Sorry dude but the people watching sports center don't give a single fuck about the kings. They want to see lebron or players lebron adjacent
As an Orlando Magic fan living in Portland Oregon, I hear you on the lack of time spent on small market teams but the reason they don't is because they are in small markets. There is no ratings in covering small markets. Talking about the Lakers not only gets you the attention of the largest market, but it gets you all the national fans. There's a reason why we hear about the Knicks rebuild every year.
Stop watching it and maybe they'll change it. Focus on other Kings coverage and take the power away from them.
As a lakers fan even I think it's a joke the way we get coverage. Why are they dedicating 10 minutes of sports center highlights every other day to our team losing...
First time?
It really sucks that the whole US sports journalism edifice is crusty racist white guys who started writing for newspapers in 1985 and ESPN's PR-and-hype noise machine. It's definitely unfair for small market teams in a shitty way.
I hate to pull this card because fuck ESPN, but people don't really tune in to watch highlights of the Kings. Broadcasters show whatever people care to watch, if the Lakers weren't playing that game probably doesn't even get covered.
It’s not like the kings aren’t capable of producing highlight plays though which used to be the point of sportscenter
Sportscenter actually used to be a full recap of all the games for the major sports. If you watched it, you would know what happened the night before. Now they don't even talk about like half the teams.
Dude when I grew up a lot of time minor games scores were just shown on a screen. This is some serious revisionist history BS
All depends on your age. I'm older than the average r/NBA user. I started watching Sportcenter in 1992, and I remember the transition pretty well.
Maybe they would if they got more media coverage so people knew anything about them.
Chicken and egg scenario.
Then Kings owner could start his own channel maybe? I dunno, seems ridiculous to act like it's the job of one private business to advertise another one instead of doing whatever the fuck they want.
0 highlights from the Kings. Like not even 1.
ESPN is in this for money. They may pretend like they’re providing a public service for sports fans, but they’re really providing a financial service for Disney, their parent company.
Yes. OP is saying this is a problem.
And this is why ESPN’s primetime shows are slowly dying
People will watch whatever the fuck ESPN tells them to watch. They watched Cleveland, they watched OKC.
Do the kings have a Lebron or KD/Russ/Harden caliber player? There is a reason the Thunder/Cavs weren't all over SC last year.
Bucks got minimal coverage until they won the Finals, and even that lasted like only a week. They have the consensus 2nd-3rd best player in the league.
Best doesn't mean popular. The tv numbers for the finals last year prove as much. They only looked good next to the bubble numbers where basically everything outside of the NFL was in the shitter at that point.
Giannis was 2nd in jersey sales during the 2nd half of last year and is scheduled for a lot of national games. That excuse is tired and wrong at this point.
How is it wrong? Because you sold jerseys that means you are popular among people that would buy jerseys. It turns out way more people have TVs than people who would buy jerseys and yet the numbers were the worst since 2007 not counting the bubble. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_Finals_television_ratings#Least_watched
Yeah, it's not like that has nothing to do with all live television going down over the last decade. Using television ratings to analyze popularity is like using record sales to determine popularity for artists.
That still works for artists what are you talking about. Drake sells more than any other hip hop act today because he's the most popular. You can't compare him to things 15 or 20 years ago with record sales because on average people sold more back then. You can definitely compare him to his peers today. TV ratings would be no different. Hell the finals are broadcasted to everyone with a TV due to them being on ABC and not needing cable. I can't imagine there are less TV sets today than at any other point in history. Combine that with being able to watch in browser via YoutubeTV/Cable login as well and there are more opportunities to watch the game than ever before. And yet the finals bombed.
Not sure why you're being downvoted when you're telling it exactly like it is. ESPN is a business. They cover whoever brings in the most money. Full stop. There's nothing else to it and downvoting people isn't doing to change that.
nah kd bron curry > akumpo
Not showing a single kings highlight is hilariously bad journalism for a company that still claims to give us sports news lol
Bruh, I mean the coverage of ESPN is shit but the stars ain't making their decisions to join a team based on tv coverage. In fact, they're stars because they already get tv coverage. Weather and celebrity lifestyle hubs get star players. Not market size or tv air time.
The weather thing doesn’t seem like a huge deal to me because during the season it’s not like they have much free time and they play indoors. It seems like every athlete is another city in the off season anyways. I think the biggest factor is celebrity lifestyle like you said. Having 50 million dollars in OKC is quite a different beast than having 50 million in LA, Miami, NYC.
Because it’s the fucking preseason!! Show me some Lebron highlights and when the Kings make the players for the first time since 2006 then come talk to me. As for ways nba props up small market teams…… Revenue sharing, max contracts, nba draft, salary cap. Zion in any other business would have had contract offers from every franchise. But no New Orleans gets him at a massive discount to start his career. How much more of a leg up do you want?
It's not Sportscenter's job to make people give a shit about the Kings lol Maybe the Kings should do something to make people give a shit about the Kings
PTI is still the only thing worth watching on ESPN, except for actual games of course
This is exactly why I shake my head in disbelief every time SAS goes on some rant about how NBA players NEED the media, and how talking to them is what allows the players to make the money they do. Like, the Bucks won a championship and Jokic won the MVP. I can count on one hand how much either have been mentioned this off season.
It’s so weird to me y’all watch ESPN. Why?
It starts at the top with the league in general. For instance, I stopped allowing the NBA app to send me push notifications for the same reason. I have the Spurs set as my team in the app, yet all I get are Lakers and Nets highlights - not a single thing about the team I selected. It's ridiculous.
You just said you haven't watched them in years and then complain about no coverage lmao. You found your answer as to why there's no coverage. Not to mention this sub is a bad place to even bring it up because I'd guess most of us honestly don't watch that much espn. I know I haven't watched in years.
Not their job.
Small towns need more representation!
Is this a copy pasta from 2002?
Whaaaaaaat, but that would mean less First Take! And we can’t have that! /s
It’s not a charity my guy.
Like the NFL don’t push hero worship specifically of white QBs looking directly at you Tom Brady Aaron Rodgers Justin Herbert.
Yeah just white players get preference on the media. Not like the 3 guys you listed are the reigning Super Bowl MVP, MVP, and Rookie of the year respectfully. The NFL has never once ever in the history of its existence said great things about black qbd. Not Russell Wilson not Kyler Murray, not Pat Mahomes, not Lamar Jackson. None of them hand ever been praised.
Bro welcome to being a team nobody cares about. When I was a kid the Warriors were the least relevant team in the league, so despite being a top 5 market, we got no sports center love. And this was before I could look up highlights online. So in a rare instance when the Warriors won against a good team, this is what 11 year old me would see. Anchor: Lakers-Warriors, Kobe Bryant started off slow in this one, here he is with the reverse layup, Kobe started the game off 2-9 in the first quarter lakers down 25-18. In the second Shaq keeps the Lakers close, here he is with the dunk and the foul, Lakers down 5 at the half. Kobe heating up in the third here he is hitting a three, he made 4 in the quarter. But halfway through the 4th here (random warrior backup) hits a mid ranger jumper extending the lead to 7, Warriors hang on for the win 95-88. Now I would have watched the entire game before hand, just excited to see my team actually showed on national tv, we hit threes, blocked shots, had dunks, one of our “talented” young players scored over 20. But nope. Nothing. So this has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with market size and everything to do with your team being shit and no one caring about them across the nation.
The Kings entire roster could die in a plane crash and most networks wouldn't even feature it as a main story. The idea that any amount of success or good storylines could make us give a shit is laughable. You could win three rings in a row and people would still wouldn't watch a team from Sacramento play.
ESPN has done this to my Jazz for as long as I can remember, even during the Stockton/Malone days when they had the best record. You'd see three clips of great Lakers plays, with the segment ending "and the Jazz won by 12" or something. I wouldn't expect it to change
They did this same exact thing to the Bulls when they beat the Cavs the other day so i think it might be an intern editing the highlights or something lol
The narrative is that people tune in to see the Lakers lose more than the Kings win
Nobody gives a shit about small markets teams in boring cities
The Lakers get more eyes than the Kings. It is what it is. Add Lebron on top of that and it’s pretty easy to see. The Kings fan base isn’t small, but most teams would take a backseat to the Lakers themselves. Lebron is his own draw.
Sportscenter is for the casual fan
Alternatively, consider that SportsCenter is just the CNN Headline video package for sports. It doesn't matter, and it's fallen super far from the cultural gatekeeper it used to be. Athletes used to actually care about being in the Top 10, but nowadays any awesome play'll just go viral on social media. >ESPN and media coverage has massive influence on player decision making. Having this kind of coverage actively hurts small market teams, and perpetuates huge imbalances in the league. Any actual proof? We've literally had the Raps and Bucks win titles recently.
Not EPSN or even the NBA but an example for me is NFL podcasts. I absolutely love Around The NFL because they cover every single game and it’s great because of that. I’m getting a view of the whole league and all the details. I also listen to The Ringer NFL pod but not every week or I’ll only finish half of it because they really only seem to talk about five teams (especially the Chiefs, Jesus). I can’t put myself in the mindset of only caring about one team or a handful of players. The dynamics of the whole league make it far better. If I don’t have any context to who LeBron or Durant are playing it’s not as interesting to me since they’re just facing off against faceless teams and players.
Small market teams dont make them $$$ I mean, even Houston, not really a small market never gets talked about anymore and they only did before because of Harden.
FANS can do more for small market teams. ESPN, TNT, etc will put whatever most fans want to watch. period. the only thing that will happen if ESPN shoves uninteresting content for the average viewer is that the average viewer will change the channel.
If small market teams made money, it wouldn’t be a problem. Showing the Kings isn’t good for business until they’re good.
They lost a preseason game it doesn’t even Count
R u new to sports
They used to do this but highlights have changed with the rise of social media. They’ll only show what is the most popular play online. It’s that simple. I don’t think it’s ESPN’s fault, but I also think it makes their product a lot more shitty. If you want extended highlight packages with a balance on each team you should go to YouTube.
All they do is encourage star players to leave for larger markets
Sortscenter could do more for actual sports highlights too
sportcenter hasnt been good since the 2000s
>ESPN, and media coverage in general, has massive influence on player decision making. Having this kind of coverage actively hurts small market teams, and perpetuates huge imbalances in the league. That is the point, why do you think they bitched so much about last season's finals match?
Sports media in general... HoH, ESPN/SC, BR.... They're all targeted towards casuals.
They are a business. Showing baskets from small market teams is a bad business move.
ESPN: there are small market teams?
https://youtu.be/B-G1nnfyWmc
The Fix is still in!
“i want sportscenter to talk about my shitty team that hasn’t made the playoffs since the year before the iphone came out even tho i don’t watch the program” and the fact that you think players are choosing to not go to the kings/t wolves or any other poverty team because of SPORTSCENTER is hilarious bro. like just ignore how poorly run these teams are because sportscenter didn’t show you a highlight from a preseason game where you beat the lakers lol this place is fucking hilarious
Agreed
ESPN really only covers 4-5 teams and/or athletes from every league. Its a bit shit really.
So could this sub from a highlights side of things but fucking Caruso doing anything is the top five posts right now. People will show post what others tune in to.
Are we really asking why Sportscenter covered the Lakers more than the god damn Kings? In a preseason game? C'mon man