There are two types of basketball fans, those who go to
games and those who don’t.
It’s not a particularly accurate statement but it’s the kind
of hook that can serve to illustrate a message.
What is the message? There isn’t just one, there are many. Wag
the fandom!
And don’t forget the hook—bolster it, express it, worship
it, pervert it, turn it into software and sell it by the bushel, baby.
One type of fan may go to as many games as he or she can
afford, immersed in the live experience and feeling part of a
community—celebrating the wins and feeling the abject misery of the losses,
shouting themselves hoarse and knocking fists, hands, hips and spilled drinks
with surrounding bodies.
Another fan mostly stares at a screen or multiple screens and is obsessed
with social media. This fan may or may not attend the occasional game in person
but crams in as much action as possible through the cyber experience.
There’s also the media types who may be part of the live
experience by attending games on a regular basis in order to
write/comment/observe, or may stare obsessively at a screen on order to do
same.
Chronicling the game takes shape in many forms, including
traditional global behemoths, city beats, national fan sites, networked
oligarchies, team fan sites, boutique highbrows, egghead analysis and sublimely
ridiculous basketball confessionals. For anyone who feels as if they have
fallen through a crack, do not worry—the crevices aren’t all that deep.
But while fandom is an intrinsic part of it all, there are
still other equally important components. Such as players and coaches and
executives, and owners and league operatives and sources—don’t forget the
sources. These are the nameless shape shifters, from team personnel to snake
oil salesmen and from “league officials” to friends, family and fans!
But the sources typically can’t have names—not in sports or
anything else media related because that compromises the integrity of the
message and the message is sacrosanct, no matter how ludicrous it is.
Journalism’s word is binding and that’s why the granting of
anonymity is taken so seriously. This is important stuff and players’ careers,
their earnings and the lives of their families depend on truth, accuracy and
fair play.
Let’s examine a case study while protecting the anonymity of
all involved.
A particular freewheeling player is coming off a career year
and has been rewarded with a four-year deal, the final year of which is a team
option. The money is good but nothing in the superstardom range. It may be $5.5
million per year.
We will call this player “Bill.” He is now our friend and we
want him to succeed, even if he sometimes annoys us with his capricious
shot-chucking ways.
Bill is at practice and he jams a finger. Most humans know
how painful and commonplace this can be. It screws up everything. For hoopsters
it is a routine occurrence and is often treated in a cursory way—ever seen the
twisted, gnarled hands of professional athletes?
Our finger-hurting pal shows up to work and has an off night
which is not surprising as he is a rather streaky fellow, even when healthy.
Undeterred by the throbbing pain, Bill lofts up 13 attempts, connecting on only
two. He laughs it off after the game and chuckles good-naturedly when a member
of his entourage makes a trade reference.
A weary media member who arrived too late to get any actual
worthwhile quotes, decides to tweet out the trade joke, omitting any elements of
humor. The “possible trade of Bill according to an unnamed source” receives minimal attention on a slow night.
But an editor of a large fan site instructs a writer
to pen 800 words about Team X Searching for Trade Partner for Bill, adding some
helpful tips: “Use your unique perspective and expertise to make a credible
argument that will convince your readers!”
As it turns out, the fan site is not alone, with several other media platforms milking the same message. It is assumed that this minor blip will be nothing but programming filler.
As it turns out, the fan site is not alone, with several other media platforms milking the same message. It is assumed that this minor blip will be nothing but programming filler.
Two nights later, Bill’s finger is still swollen and stiff
with a nice knob forming at the intermediate phalange of his index digit. He
loves his social media and has laughed off the rumors but it’s another lousy
game and he’s still jacking up rim-clangers. It’s starting to get into his
head.
One of the traditional behemoths decides the little story
could benefit from a few million extra hits and augments it with video
auto-play commentary. There’s “what-if” pontification and a new unnamed
source.
It is the third game since Bill’s boo-boo occurred and the
team has headed out on a mini road trip, appearing on a cold winter’s night at
a Really Big Arena where opposing fans have picked up on the gathering story
and are only too delighted to add to the communal joy experience. Our erstwhile
Volume Scorer forces up a rather large arsenal of air-balls and other wounded
ducks as boos rain down from the rafters.
It’s a nationally televised game and a color commentator
mentions the trade rumors. During the post-game presser, questions are coming
at Bill and his coach—a guy who sometimes likes the sound of his own voice a
bit too much. The team’s PR guru grits his teeth and pulls the plug.
The team’s general manager, "Joe," is well aware of all that
is happening but he’s a veteran of these idiotic wars and considers it all bullshit.
He has more pressing things to deal with, like a Megastar who will be a
free agent at the end of the season—said centerpiece being a hell of a lot more
important to the world than Bill.
A writer at an egghead stats-based site has been observing
this nonsense from afar—living in Iceland as he does. After a day spent coding
for a new game about baby sea turtles trying to cross a coastal highway, our
scribe just needs to decompress. He believes he has found some interesting
patterns cementing his existing belief that our finger-jammed hero is
nothing more than a one-dimensional ball hog with a ludicrous usage rate. This
turns into a scathing treatise filled with shot charts and analytic logic and
the inescapable conclusion that the entire organization stinks from the top
down. Most importantly, Bill must go!
Mount Quoranocco forms a lonely peak from which rains sluices down, gathering speed in a myriad of tiny streams and joining forces with runoff from neighborhoods, streets, yards, golf courses and
factories, filtering into storm drains and carrying the collected
polluted water into a giant discharge pipe that emerges from the side of a
sandy cliff, spewing the frothy stuff into an otherwise peaceful ocean inlet.
"Ben," the owner of Team X and a man who made his fortune as
an industrialist, is sitting by the window wall of his beach
house, staring quizzically at the sewage spilling from that cursed pipe into
his beloved ocean cove. The irony of the origins of his wealth and the gray
damaged water do not escape him.
But there are other things on his mind as well. While Ben may
be the only person in his entire organization who has never jammed a finger, he
has formed definitive notions about the dynamics of business and sports and how
that correlates on the court. He also had somebody create a special software
analytics model at an exorbitant cost that he has been using to examine the
chasm between where his team is and where he thinks it should be.
Ben also just finished reading the Icelander’s article. He picks
up the phone and calls his GM.
Meanwhile, Bill has taken to wearing a part-time split on his wounded
finger and the combination of
rest, ice treatments, various drugs and the ability to semi-compartmentalize
pain has resulted in a slight improvement.
Joe takes the call from his owner and is told to explore the
trade market. This news is leaked immediately, of course, because by now, a
very prominent writer who can deduce all transactional information within fractions of
seconds with a 99.9 percent accuracy rate, is on the job.
But after a few days of calls, it becomes apparent there are
no serious takers for Bill’s multiyear contract—the exception being a
lottery-bound team who offers up a 23-year-old center with artificial knees who
has yet to make his rookie debut, three years after being drafted.
On December 22, Bill scores 32 points off the bench,
including all seven of his downtown bombs. His team still loses. The following
night on a back-to-back, the guy with the healing finger defies all known logic
with another 32 points, along with two steals, no assists and no rebounds.
Basketball twitter melts and an editor instructs a writer to crank out 800
words about Why Team X Must Surround Bill With Worthy Teammates, adding, “Use your
exceptional abilities to convince your audience of the credibility of your
argument and make sure you reinforce the message every three sentences.”
Two days later the Superstar demands a trade to “any team
possibly contending for the playoffs” and Bill’s up and down journey falls completely
off the map after only getting as high as No. 37 on the All-Sports Media
Syndicated Ratings Data for the second two weeks of December.
There are fans who go to sports events and those who don’t, and
players who either play the “right way” or have no interest whatsoever in matters of subjective
correctness, or in owners whose career successes have more in common with carcinogenic
runoff than any actual tactile experience with a spinning orb on a rainbow
trajectory toward an improbably small and distant target.
The sources and messages and interpretations, along with
aimless wordsmithing can matter a lot or not at all, and who will really
remember once the next evolutionary step of Frogger is released, 20 years
later, this time starring baby sea turtles?
Wag the fandom!
Somewhere a car floats around a corner with the music
bumping and the windows dark. A 7-foot junkie is busted in Gold Bar with a
stocking over his head, and a man who once roamed the sidelines in richly
colored synthetic blends lies quietly in a sterile room, imagining the road
ahead.
There’s no reason to reinforce the hook now, it was just a midsummer night's joint.
Wicked, wicked post Dave! Truman Capote is somewhere smirking , & quite subtly giving you a sly, `well done´ wink :)
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Great read Dave, thanks - Purple
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