A Matter of Trust
Written on June 15, 2008
Billy Joel called it decades ago.
This should be the NBA Finals’ crowning moment, matching two legendary franchises in the LA Lakers and Boston Celtics. But instead of media focused on the classic matchup stats and numbers, everyone is talking about another very different set of numbers. AdAge released an article today that a third of respondents polled feel NBA games are rigged to affect outcome. Nearly half of those respondents consider themselves casual-to-avid NBA fans.
If that doesn’t get league commissioner David Stern sweating, this detail will: The poll was taken before alleged game-fixing ref Tim Donaghy claimed earlier this week that refs allegedly fix the NBA playoffs, especially the 2002 series between the Lakers and Kings.
Along the same lines, respected basketball blog TrueHoop has links to a simple analysis that big-market teams might receive an edge (along with a growing number of ref-fixing articles). Add to that the big-market Bulls improbable first pick in the draft, my Cavaliers getting hometown hero LeBron a few years earlier, and posh expansion Orlando’s lucky-beyond-belief consecutive #1 drafts of Shaq and Penny back in the early 90′s and you’ve got a long history of fans who don’t completely trust the game they love.
Should be very interesting to see how the league responds and what they’ll do to change public perception of their product in the eyes of fans.
Filed in: Advertising,Uncategorized.
