I’d say that the NFL does an amazing job of showcasing that they have 32 teams across the country regardless of media market, superstars, or success. The baseline for coverage, analysis, and media assets devoted to teams at the bottom of their division are much higher than those for lottery-level NBA teams. If an NBA team is a Wizards-in-the-last-decade-level bad, the NBA media just tries to skirt around how bad they are and focus on the contending teams unless they’re truly, historically bad (Bobcats). In the NFL, even the dumpster fires get critical breakdowns and aren’t treated as afterthoughts.
Maybe that’s more symptomatic of the NBA being focused on utilizing their largest existing media markets whereas the NFL builds large media markets in places that normally wouldn’t have them. Each NFL team is treated like an asset that’s meant to succeed marketing & business wise on it’s own, versus the NBA where a handful of markets are able to carry the rest of the league on their back.
This begs the question for me: is the gap between top and bottom tier teams bigger in the NFL or NBA? I don’t know enough about football to make a judgment.
It’s hard to compare whether the parity is similar because they play much fewer games. In football, you only need to win 3 games to be the champions. That in itself allows weaker teams to win from a streak. In basketball, you need to win 4 games just to get out of the first round. It’s quite hard for individual players to overperform across multiple series in the NBA so it’s more apparent that a team like the Wizards or the Hornets have no chance of winning.
I’d say that the NFL does an amazing job of showcasing that they have 32 teams across the country regardless of media market, superstars, or success. The baseline for coverage, analysis, and media assets devoted to teams at the bottom of their division are much higher than those for lottery-level NBA teams. If an NBA team is a Wizards-in-the-last-decade-level bad, the NBA media just tries to skirt around how bad they are and focus on the contending teams unless they’re truly, historically bad (Bobcats). In the NFL, even the dumpster fires get critical breakdowns and aren’t treated as afterthoughts.
Maybe that’s more symptomatic of the NBA being focused on utilizing their largest existing media markets whereas the NFL builds large media markets in places that normally wouldn’t have them. Each NFL team is treated like an asset that’s meant to succeed marketing & business wise on it’s own, versus the NBA where a handful of markets are able to carry the rest of the league on their back.
This begs the question for me: is the gap between top and bottom tier teams bigger in the NFL or NBA? I don’t know enough about football to make a judgment.
It’s hard to compare whether the parity is similar because they play much fewer games. In football, you only need to win 3 games to be the champions. That in itself allows weaker teams to win from a streak. In basketball, you need to win 4 games just to get out of the first round. It’s quite hard for individual players to overperform across multiple series in the NBA so it’s more apparent that a team like the Wizards or the Hornets have no chance of winning.