1. Bob on January 27, 2004 12:59 PM writes...

I wonder if the phenomenon can be partly explained by categorization of fans. That is, hardcore-to-semi-hardcore fans will be interested and attend games regardless of the parity level (I, for one, like the idea of it being a race among many, as long as they're not all .500-teams). Occasional/fringe fans, for whatever reason (e.g. "Rule of Two", big media markets), prefer the dynasty scenario.

Anyway, perhaps this doesn't really explain the phenomenon any more, but perhaps it explains it more precisely.

Example: In today's high-parity environment, a fan like me would pay equally (assuming prices weren't so ridiculous) to see my hometown team play Minnesota, Sacramento, Dallas, etc. But Fringe Fan Frank might only be interested when the 80's Lakers/Celtics come town.

2. Hei Lun Chan on January 27, 2004 01:19 PM writes...

I disagree with the premise of the question. The number of dominant teams is about the same as it was in the 80's. Despite a number of teams with similar records, the only teams that had any real shot at winning the championship since Jordan retired are the Lakers and the Spurs. Teams like the Mavericks and Kings can win 60 in the regular season but can't win in the playoffs.

3. Bob on January 27, 2004 01:28 PM writes...

You know, on second thought, I, too, should have questioned the premise. Can the author cite some supporting evidence? How is dominance defined? How does the experiment address the time dimension, i.e. the lag between dominant performance and recognized "dominance?" What about the general decline in sports TV ratings - how does that impact the analysis? And is there a middle ground? What's the most "interesting" scenario: One dominant team plus pretenders, one dominant team in each conference, destined to battle, or two great teams in each conference, giving you great conference finals as well as championships?

My earlier comment might still be useful, but a step back might be even moreso. Then again, I've heard this discussion so often, I don't really care to discuss it anymore myself...

4. brb on January 27, 2004 01:55 PM writes...

The NFL does just fine without pandering to the NY and LA market. The Yankees are hurting baseball viewership, IMHO, and I cite WS viewership as evidence.

5. Don on January 27, 2004 03:18 PM writes...

I think a reason the NBA has this problem, as opposed to the NFL, is the scarcity of talent issue.
One player can make a team good in the NBA, not in the NFL. Two or three players make a dynasty in the NBA (Bird, McHale, Parish; Magic, Worthy, Kareem; etc.) while that's just a good defensive or offensive unit in the NFL.
The influx of horrible shooting teenagers with wunderkind bodies is the trouble. Its not visible in Lebron et.al. but in the random player who leaves college before he is ready. That's the 4th player, 5th player, bench player, complementary player that makes basketball a great game instead of 2-on-2 clearouts.

Hall-of-famer Danny Ainge was a pine rider for the C's after a great college run, and had to work into the starting lineup. Imagine him in today's game - he would have maybe one college year, with a college coach more concerned with winning in that one year than teaching him anything fundamental. His HS career consists of AAU ball with no skill work and hangers-on telling him to stop passing and jack the rock. Learn how to break down a zone? hell naw, let's just ball.

The basketball farm system is deeply flawed and that erodes the talent level of the NBA. Why do you think Euros are all over the NBA?

6. Brian Carnell on January 27, 2004 03:35 PM writes...

Isn't the real problem that the Bulls and MJ were so dominant that anything afterward is kind of a let down? Frankly, I feel I already saw the best possible basketball watching the Bulls and I have better things to do now.

7. JC on January 27, 2004 04:35 PM writes...

I just crunched the numbers (see URL for link) for 1960-2001 using attendance to proxy fan interest. It seems there is a small negative correlation between CB and attendance, but it is not statistically significant. But, I am not sure if this is enough to contradict the premise. My guess is that Tyler is right...he normally is.

8. Matt Bernhardt on January 27, 2004 05:09 PM writes...

This is a very interesting topic, and I enjoyed all the comments as well.

I suppose it all depends in what you like. I view the NFL as a bunch of mediocre teams. Nobody stands out as dominant, but that also means that fewer teams can even be considered good. So while everyone has a theoretical chance to make the Super Bowl in the NFL, the NBA allows for another source of fan interest, hate :)

I'm a Bulls fan (and if you are, check the link), so I can't speak for them, but I know that the past few years of Lakers dominance gave me excitement as a fan to see them get beaten. The other teams in the league all have to strive to beat that standard, and it just seems to me that overcoming dominance becomes more to do with the continual building process of a team, rather than year-to-year luck that can catapult a mediocre team into the Super Bowl. This creates true rivalries like the Kings-Lakers (culminating in the 2002 western conference finals), one team that is building to overcome the 'goliath'. I call those true rivalries as opposed to ones that are simply geographical, and often has one team consistently on top.

So when the Lakers were finally toppled by the Spurs, I got more emotionally involved in the matchup than I would've if they were merely a part of 30 other competitively balanced teams.

I guess I'm trying to say that sometimes its nice to see 'coronations' honoring the current symbol of dominance or better yet the challenger that finally toppled them. I don't know if that is the same belief of all nba fans, but I do know that most hate those Lakers.

9. CJP on January 27, 2004 05:26 PM writes...

I don't pretend to know the answer, given that the premise is correct (that attendance rises with one or two dominant teams vs competitive balance). But I'm a little skeptical about the "rule of two" rationale. I don't think it holds necessarily because sports coverage is not only national in scope (ESPN, etc) but each city with a team has TV, radio, and print media that are local, and do not have to expend tons of money to cover the "field" of competitive teams. They really only need to send one guy along with the local team, and can get info on the other teams thru the wire services, TV or radio themselves. I don't see logically (or by observation) how this dynamic changes significantly between the two situations. I could see a difference in TV viewing one or two teams makes the advertising a bit easier and allows the viewer to "get to know" the teams better than would otherwise be the case), but not attendance. Sorry, though I don't buy the rule of two, I don't have a good explanation. Interesting, though.

10. Bob on January 27, 2004 06:09 PM writes...

"But I'm a little skeptical about the "Rule of Two" rationale."

I agree with CJP that data on all teams is OUT THERE and AVAILABLE. However, the way the dynamic might change between the situation is that fringe fans, those who absorb whatever comes through on CNN or the front page, might be more likely to accumulate interest sufficient to buy tickets IF they keep hearing about the same team(s). So if you (example fringe fan) care only a little about sports, it might be the case that watching the Championship game has a greater share of your mind if, in the 20 total minutes you paid attention to the NBA this year, you kept hearing "Lakers Lakers Lakers!" or "Lakers and Celtics are the Titans!" If that little piece of mind was distributed among "Lakers Mavericks Spurs Kings Lebron Yao," maybe you don't turn on the TV.

At least, that's how the theory might explain it. I'm not sure how to apply it to attendance, where fringe fans that go to one game per season could, in the dominance scenario, only skew attendance for a couple of games per season (i.e. if the Lakers dominate and I'm a fringe fan, I'm not sure the theory predicts that I'll go see my home team play the Bucks).

11. JC on January 28, 2004 12:36 PM writes...

I think the answer may lie in the information costs of keeping up with the NBA. All 30 NBA teams play 82 games a year, which means a total of 1230 regular season games are played over a course of a season. Compare this with the NFL’s 32-team/16-game schedule – 256 games a year. To me, watching a sporting contest where I have some idea about the quality of the contest is more enjoyable than watching one without this information. When I watch the New England and Detroit play in the NFL I know I am seeing a good team and a bad team play. A blowout by New England does not surprise me, but a close game does. When I watch hockey – of which I have no knowledge – I cannot distinguish one game from another.

Now how does this relate to the NBA? There are so many team-games in the NBA it is hard to keep up from week-to-week and year-to-year. When I sit down to watch a game on the weekend, it is harder to update the quality of the teams than it is in the NFL. Between 14 and 16 games occurred in the NFL the previous week. I can easily catch up with those teams. In the NBA, where teams may play 3 games a week, which means I have to catch up on 45 games to know anything about the quality of the teams. It is just less enjoyable. Now let’s consider a situation where we have an equally competitive league and a league with a few dominant teams. When I sat down to a Bulls-Knicks game in the 1990s, well I knew that was a great game and Bulls-Timberwolves is a sleeper. BUT, my enjoyment of the game is greater with the dominant teams, because I know a good bit about the quality of the game. In an equally balanced league, the good and bad teams may fluctuate throughout the season, and I will not be able to figure out who is good and who is bad. The outcome of any given game does not provide much enjoyment.

So I have a testable hypothesis. Many team-game leagues (NBA, MLB) should be more negatively correlated with fan interest than few team-game leagues like football. How does this hold up? Unfortunately, I do not have the answer. I do know that CB in MLB is not correlated with attendance, thanks to an excellent paper by one of my students from my Research Seminar. She could find no relationship between CB on individual team attendance from 1998-2001 in a simple correlation and in regressions controlling for many different factors. I would be interested to see the results for football, where CB might generate more fan interest since fans can keep up with the entire league at a lower cost than the NBA and MLB.

12. Rich B on January 28, 2004 01:38 PM writes...

I like the "Rule of Two" and the concept of Fiji Math. I think it really sums up sports psychology - and sports fan psychology - quite neatly.

The Rule of Two is why tennis is interesting if the match is Sampras v. Agassi, or Williams v. Williams.

The Rule of Two is why golf is interesting if Sunday is Tiger v. The Field, or Hootie v. Marcia.

The Rule of Two is why home run chases are interesting between Sosa v. McGwire, Bonds v. Sosa, or Bonds v. The Babe. Everyone does remember that Griffey Jr. was in the hunt well past the All Star Break in '98, right? I didn't think so.

The Rule of Two is why an AFC match-up of Titans v. Ravens is more gripping drama if the viewer is told the "real" match-up is Eddie George v. Ray Lewis.

The Rule of Two is why college football is all about Ohio State v. Michigan, USC v. UCLA, Cal v. The Stanford Band, Florida v. Florida State, Army v. Navy, [insert rivalry here], with a few thousand other games thrown in.

The Rule of Two is why an MLB postseason is only compelling if it pits Clemens v. Piazza, Martinez v. Zimmer, or potentially Red Sox v. Cubs.

The Rule of Two is why a college basketball postseason is ...

Crap. Nevermind. ;)

13. nemo on January 28, 2004 02:40 PM writes...

Perhaps the issue is not dominance vs competitive balance, but simply quality of play.

People loved the 80s Lakers-Celtics era not because it was two dominant teams, but simply because those two teams played so well. If we brought the cahmpionship Bulls, Pistons, Lakers, Celtics, Rockets all to today through a time machine, then there would be balance with 5 competitive teams, AND outstanding play AND high fan interest.

On the other hand, if the quality is not there, there is no interest, even if you have a perfectly orchestrated rivalry.

So the question is is the overall quality lower? There's probably more talent than ever, but I agree with those who say the quality of the play is lower because the talent is not sufficiently mature overall, especially when you get the 4th or 5th guy. I agree with the "what if Danny Ainge came in today" comment.

14. triticale on January 30, 2004 07:34 PM writes...

Just to muddle things a little further, what is the impact of rivalries? Can someone chart attendance at Bears - Packers games, and see if it even mattered whether one or both teams stank that season?