On the Future of Watching Sports

What it means to be a fan in an increasingly fan unfriendly environment

We interrupt my travels to bring you something that I REALLY need to get off my chest.

As you MAY have noticed, this blog has largely been minor league sports (plus independent baseball, which is essentially on par with the minor leagues). Yes, there have been a few "Major League" games, but two of those games were soccer and box lacrosse (which are not considered major sports in the U.S), and the others were all women's sports (which are still very much not as established as their mens' counterparts).

While major sports are kinda sorta on my radar, more often than not I feel like the investments I would need to make to go to these games (namely tickets) aren't entirely worth it¹. I realize that I'm fairly privileged to have seen as many New Jersey Devils games as I have, but I also don't know if I'd be able to do those without the help of my dad (as we got our tickets through the company he works for).

However, something happened recently that caught my attention (and happens to be relevant to this blog):

The idea of the NBA as a "highlight sport".

This comment came from Adam Silver (the league's commissioner), who was responding to a question about how the league being divided between several different se-I mean streaming partners is becoming cost prohibitive for fans (at least until cable/satellite TV makes its inevitable comeback). His response, in essence, was to showcase just how much content the NBA puts out on social media platforms as a way for fans to continue to consume NBA content. However, many fans took this as him basically telling fans who can't afford to watch full games to "just watch highlights", and it's sparked a large debate about the costs of watching sports nowadays (which, in case it wasn't obvious, is a major factor in this blog's continued existence).

I will NOT talk about what I think about NBA highlights (or, to be more accurate, the sport's "metagame") in this post, as that's kinda irrelevant (even if Silver basically disparaged HIS OWN LEAGUE by reducing it to highlights). Instead, let's talk about what the reality of trying to watch a sport live is - and I'll use the NBA itself for my example.

I'm going to spoil something: I looked at Brooklyn Nets tickets yesterday as I have plans to catch a Nets game next year. While most of the games I saw were what I kinda expected (i.e. a bit on the pricey side, but more affordable the worse the opponent was), two stood out to me: the Lakers and Warriors. For whatever reason, the lowest price for a non-resale ticket to either of these games was OVER $200. Whether that's purely due to Steph Curry (for the Warriors) or the LeBron/Luka combo (for the Lakers) I don't know, but that hefty price tag puts the cost of going to those games ahead of:

• The Boston Celtics (division rival and NBA elite - even if they're expected to have a "down year")
• The Indiana Pacers (defending Eastern Conference Champions - even if they're missing their best player)
• The Oklahoma City Thunder (the defending NBA champions)
• The Denver Nuggets (who feature Nikola Jokic - widely regarded as the best player in the NBA)
• The Milwaukee Bucks (who also feature one of the best players in the NBA in Giannis I'm-not-even-going-to-attempt-to-spell-his-last-name)
• The KNICKS (a team expected to be good and your freakin' IN-CITY RIVAL)

What's more surprising, however, is the team I found with the third-highest price was NONE OF THE ABOVE: it was the Houston Rockets (who feature former Net Kevin Durant), and those tickets were $90 - just under half of what it costs to see the two "super premium" games.

I realize that I've gotten a bit sidetracked, but $200 is INSANE for any game - and this just gets you into the "cheap seats", where you're basically staring at tiny men who resemble basketball players unless you watch the jumbotron; at that point, you're basically doing something you could've just done at home!

Not only that, but to GO to a game, you have to GO there - and more often than not, that involves taking trains (which the United States doesn't have a good track record with) or paying insane amounts for parking (usually >$40). Also, I haven't touched the merch aspects of this, but that will require its own post someday because THAT'S a massive situation too! Case in point: most arena stores upcharge HEAVILY for things that can be bought online/at Dicks Sporting Goods, but the feel of "being in the moment" drives so many people to buy things in-arena (and I haven't even talked about what the NBA does with its jerseys - someday, though).

The average fan probably isn't looking to drop a couple hundred for the chance to breathe the same air as Jordan Poole² while simultaneously buying a jersey they're going to have to replace in eight months; for those who do have that desire, however, to go to one of these games for the average fan means to very likely accrue debt. In a world where most fans are struggling to pay their necessities, creating unnecessary debt is a starting point for even worse troubles, so sporting events - even the less expensive ones - are becoming more of a premium for them. To have their favorite sports reduced to highlight packages and being force-fed opinions on ESPN is more likely to make them lose interest (outside of, well...y'know³).

So then who can go to sporting events then?

I think you know the answer⁴.

Going to sporting events is slowly turning from a form of entertainment to a status symbol (though other forms of entertainment are seemingly going the same way as well). If only those who are well off enough to afford them can attend, then that's almost certainly going to change the way being a fan of sports plays out in the United States. Instead of fans being people who actually care about the teams they support, it will be those who live in the area and have the money to support them (interest level be damned). By telling fans who can't afford to be fans to "just watch the highlights", you're essentially locking them out of the bigger picture, because like a lot of things in life, highlights do not tell the full story of a game - which is also important with the fantasy versions of sports that current fans enjoy (plus, again...y'know).

This has gotten REALLY long, so I think I will stop here. In writing this, I realized that this actually kinda connects to that Winston-Salem Dash game I wrote about last week, and while the idea of a major league event being bought out by a singular corporation is probably (and hopefully) NOT the endgame of this, the idea of sporting events becoming corporate mixers where the sport just happens to be there is something that feels like it could happen in the future.

(And before you say "Youth Sports!" as a way of getting fans: THOSE are becoming expensive too - but that's another story for another post)