No crisis, foreign players good

Yesterday Colby Cosh posted a thing that hinted at xenophobia in American pro sports:

Baseball was the most popular sport in the United States until it started attracting large numbers of Latino competitors in the 1960's and 1970's--when football, still mostly a pure American game, surpassed it. By some coincidence. (It continues to lose ground, and, if I'm right, will continue to lose ground as more Japanese players cross over, Europeans in countries like the Netherlands learn the game, and Cuban stars are finally allowed to play in the U.S. without having to build rafts.) Basketball is suffering a crisis of public confidence in the U.S., by some coincidence, as the pro game is invaded by skilled foreigners who can play with anybody.

I took issue with the last statement and sent him the following reply (lightly edited):

I won't claim to know much about hockey, but I do know a little about basketball.

First, I'm not sure what you mean by this whole "crisis of public confidence" thing. If you mean "decline in fan interest" then the two most common measures of that--TV ratings and attendance--don't tell the whole story. And, to be sure, neither has much to do with the influx of foreign players.

So, the NBA's TV ratings are down, and they've dropped pretty steadily since 1995. Why is that? The article "NBA dollars setting in the East" gets at some of the reasons:

• Weak Eastern Conference teams means that many of the good games don't start until 10 p.m. ET.
• The best players and match-ups are in the West. For the past few years the league's two best teams have met in the Western Conference finals, and the winner advanced to meet an inferior Eastern Conference team.
• People don't want to watch the San Antonio Spurs play the New Jersey Nets in the NBA finals. More generally, the recent success of small market team doesn't help the league's overall ratings.

[Other perspectives: NBA ratings slump linked to cable TV, NBA: No Broadcasts Available.]

Since the 1995-96 season, attendance at league games dropped by about 2%, and is nearly back to pre-'99 lockout levels (complete table). I wouldn't call this a crisis--I'd say the league is struggling with attendance growth.

But what about the impact of foreign players? Dan Rosenbaum's in-progress paper "It Doesn't Pay to be Young in the NBA" tells us a few things about foreign players:

• "Over time, the fraction of white players in the NBA fell from 26 percent in 1988-1989 to 20 percent in 1997-1998, rising back up to 24 percent in 2002-2003, largely due to the fraction of foreign players increasing from 6 percent to 14 percent between 1997-1998 and 2002-2003."
• "Productivity (as measured by my index) appears to have decreased considerably over time due to lower shooting percentages and fewer possessions per game."
• "The League as a whole has a strong incentive to increase the returns to skill production, since higher skills likely would result in higher revenue for the League."

The conventional wisdom is that foreign players are finesse players--skilled shooters that maybe lack toughness. (Gosh, that's the same stereotype applied in hockey.) If that wisdom holds, the addition of skilled foreigners should benefit, not hurt, the league in terms of revenue.

(Also, it's not like the NBA is being "invaded" by mini Pejas from Serbia and Montenegro. The 67 "foreigners" playing pro ball today include Tim Duncan, Rick Fox, Jamaal Magloire and Steve Nash.)

But--back to the growth in foreign players--the question is, if adding skilled foreigners helps revenue, does that translate into increased ratings? My hunch (for what it's worth) is that ratings won't grow significantly until a new East-West rivalry emerges--something on the order of the Lakers-Celtics/Magic-Bird contests in the early 80s. Rivalries generate storylines, which in turn make entertaining television. If an Eastern Conference team doesn't step up, or if two small-market teams (like the T'wolves and the Bucks) end up in the finals, the NBA might have to hire Vince McMahon to boost its ratings.

Still, the drop in ratings and stagnation in attendance doesn't mean a "crisis of public confidence" for the NBA. The CNN article mentions two positive trends: merchandise sales were up 50% in 2002-03, and the league's recently re-negotiated TV contracts were worth 25% more than the previous agreements.

To sum up: no crisis, foreign players good.

In hindsight, I'm not really sure about that whole "foreign players could increase revenue" bit. But I think the two main points, that there are better explanations for the ratings decline and that foreign players are good for the league, are solid.

On another note, basketball fans who enjoyed Moneyball might be interested in Kevin Pelton's Page 23 columnn and Roland Beech's 82Games.com.