The news this week that the ratings for the NBA finals were shockingly bad points to many problems with the Sport, but I am sure the league committing marketing suicide sure didn’t help sell their product to fans this year. I realize we live in a time where everyone dabbles in Politics almost as a recreational hobby, but most things are much better without the interjection of politics. In fact, I will go out on a limb here and say that Politics makes everything worse off, and I don’t care if we are talking about music, sports, medicine, science, business, friendships and even playing poker, these activities are all worse off when politics gets brought into the equation.
Unless your professional gig is actually in Politics, so you make money from and because of politics, most people and organizations would be better served to leave politics out of their professional, social, marketing activities and relationships in this world. This is actually marketing 101, just strictly from a business standpoint, why would you want to alienate or offend any of your paying customers? This is a very competitive world where consumers have many choices these days, and no business can afford to alienate or offend their customer base because of politics.
The major sports leagues have all gotten into this mode of being social justice warriors, and even the networks that cover sports like ESPN have interjected a large dose of Political activism into their business strategy. It is just a terrible marketing and overall business strategy in the final analysis. For example, the people that agree with your politics, this has the effect of you just singing to the choir so to speak. It is the market segment that doesn’t agree with your politics that you need to keep happy and satisfied with your product offering. Moreover, the last time I checked, business franchises like ESPN, NFL, NBA, and MLB all need as many fans and viewers as possible to keep staying relevant and maintain a healthy fanbase which brings in the steady revenue streams.
Everyone enjoys the crazy money that comes along with the sports entertainment field at this level, well this all comes from advertising dollars, and advertisers are paying for large fanbases and healthy viewership demographics of all political and social stripes. These large multi-year advertising deals are not paying these enormous sums of money to professional sports leagues to become political activists or social justice warriors.
In reality, most fans want to escape the harsh realities of their everyday lives, and this includes the nasty political balderdash of the real world. These fans enjoy watching a sport or game of competition being played where they can watch sport for pure sport’s sake. The thing that makes sports special, is that great sports competition transcends race, politics, and social status. It is a place where people from different backgrounds, political viewpoints, philosophical and religious beliefs can find common ground in watching great competition and sport in all of its compelling, natural drama.
The true essence of sports is always worse off by the interjection of politics, as are most things in this world. And it is quite evident that politics is destroying a lot of disciplines and crafts like science, medicine, entertainment, education, law and even art these days. In short, politics is making everything worse off, and most things in this world would be better off without politics.
Politics are not a necessary element for good sports drama, and when you are playing a game or participating in a sport, the last thing on your mind is politics. There are no fans watching the games and saying to themselves, “you know what this game needs right now, is for one of the players to start discussing political theory!” People don’t seek out escorts for their views on string theory, and fans don’t watch sports to learn about social and political justice. If these athletes really care so much about social and political issues, then switch careers and go become social workers or professional politicians.
But I can guarantee you that most fans don’t give a rat’s ass about professional athletes’ political views. If they want to watch politics, they can just switch the channel to CNN or Fox news. In point of fact, athletes promoting politics are actually doing grass roots marketing for the business of politics, which in essence is promoting your competition for viewership and attention such as CNN, Fox news, and the two-party political system. The real winner in everyone interjecting politics into their professional disciplines and careers is the two-party system of the Democratic and Republican parties, you are growing their fanbase and viewership, and essentially giving them more power and relevance over your lives as human beings.
I think everyone has been sucked into this political vortex which only serves to give politics more power over their lives, franchises like ESPN and MTV would be better served focusing on providing high quality content, and getting out of the business of politics, and it is a business, just not the business that you want to be in if your goal is to grow and keep a healthy viewing audience.
Indeed, it really seems like ESPN and MTV are in a race over who can run their franchise into the ground the fastest. Both of these franchises are shadows of their former selves and have reached the stage of utter irrelevancy on the media landscape, as their ratings and viewership numbers point out rather clearly. Spend less time telling me to vote, and what cause I should support, and more time covering the essence of pure sport, and bringing great music to my attention.
Just wait until the negotiations play out for the next television advertising deals, and I wouldn’t be surprised if all the sports leagues are in for a rude awakening, as advertisers need robust viewership to sell products to consumers, and your job is to bring the fans, not turn off the fans with all the political stress they can get more than enough of on CNN and Fox news. This is a pretty basic economic and marketing principle to grasp for the professional sports leagues, just follow the money.
Courtesy of John Mark Gray,
The views and opinions expressed herein are the author's own, and do not necessarily reflect those of EconMatters.
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