Buzz Bissinger, the author of “Friday Night Lights” recently wrote an article claiming the reason the NBA fan base is dwindling is due to racism. The premise of his theory is that whites are alienated by a sport that is primarily played by African Americans. I hope and think he is wrong.
I played all sports as a kid and basketball was my favorite. I watched the game, studied the game, read about it and practiced religiously. If you had asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, the answer up until I started to really grow up, was basketball player. After I really grew up the answer had to be something else as I was a skinny white kid, a little shy of the six foot mark.
Growing up white in a fairly rural area in Pennsylvania in the sixties, I could have easily fallen into becoming prejudiced. I honestly believe one of the main reasons I didn’t was sports. If I could have controlled my destiny at the age of eight or so I would have grown up to be Walt Frazier. He had all the right moves offensively and defensively, one of the prettiest jump shots of all time and off the court wore platform shoes with live gold fish in them.
I could relate to Walt Frazier and the players of that era. They were a little larger than most people I knew but not radically so. They also only made a little more money than your average Joe. Today’s average NBA athlete is 6’8”, weighs 231 pounds and earned on average in 2008, $5.356 million dollars, not including endorsements. What is even more amazing about these professional giants is that within five years of retirement, 60 percent of them are broke. For some reason I can’t relate to that. I just have a disconnect to a game which I used to play with fairly normal size people who knew that when you took more than two steps without dribbling or passing the other team got the ball, which is now played by mega millionaires who travel practically every time they go up the court.
I’m sure there are racists who don’t watch basketball for the simple reason that they don’t want to watch athletes of another race who are far superior to themselves earn a great deal more money. I’m also guessing that those same racists weren’t watching the NBA 10 or 20 years ago. My suggestion to Mr. Bissinger is if he really wants to see the NBA fan base return, get the NBA to eliminate the salary cap and institute a height cap. And while he is at it he should see about getting those traveling rules enforced a little more strictly.
