Just another night at a Sixers game

Is the NBA's popularity really that much greater than the NHL's?
by Jeremy Rosenberg

Your intrepid reporter recently took in a Sixers/Celtics game at the Wachovia Center. Two stunning revelations were made at this event:

A. Boston fans are exactly as annoying in person as they are on TV.
B. A Sixers game in 2007-08 is a thoroughly lame and depressing experience.

In fairness, if you’re a Sixers fan and you really want to go to a game, don’t let me stop you. It’s a fine evening out, if you’re into that sort of thing. In fact, I encourage it. I actually always enjoy myself there. You just have to try not to think about how the bulk of what you spent on the ticket is paying for the next fourteen years of Samuel Dalembert’s contract (help the Sixers out – buy a few sodas).

When the Sixers came out for the pregame shoot-around, they were wearing 80s-style warm-up jackets, and if you squinted you could imagine that it was 1982 and Larry Bird was in town and you were about to watch a classic tilt between two of the league’s powerhouses. Alas, then the game started and you realized that that’s not Dr. J, it’s Reggie Evans – and from there, the tragic disappointments just kept on coming.

It was a decent, though not great crowd for a Wednesday night, though it was unclear if this was because Kevin Garnett and the hated Celtics were in town, or if it was Dollar Dog Night. The Phillies always draw great crowds for Dollar Dog Night, but the Sixers were unable to match this, probably due to their curious miscalculation of not bothering to actually announce they were doing it. The Sixers should hold a ticket raffle and select their next Director of Marketing at random from the crowd; it couldn’t be much worse than the bizarre display of PR ineptitude that was presented by the team throughout the night.

At the risk of sounding like a cranky elderly guy, lots of unnervingly loud stuff happens during timeouts, and it’s really pretty bad. They don’t do the “Bag of Shoes” thing anymore (in which kids have their shoes taken from them and they have to run across the court and get them back – it actually makes even less sense when you see it) but there’s still the sinister-looking Hip Hop doing his trampoline dunks, the Sixers Dancers (who – and somebody needs to say it – are basically just strippers wearing Sixers tank tops), and a moment when they bring out some hapless loser and force him to make a few shots in full view of a Philly crowd eager to boo somebody. I go to a few games a year and I can attest that this never, ever ends well.

All of this just feels like cheap, minor league stuff, and not the kind of thing that one of the country’s most popular sports should be doing with its time. If the Sixers were winning, of course, then we could put up with it, but the Sixers are 8-13, so watching a guy in a rabbit suit get thrown into some giant bowling pins only seems to underscore the utter pointlessness of the actual basketball game.

It all calls into question whether or not the NBA is anywhere near as popular or successful these days as it is believed to be. Hack sportswriters have spent the last few years giving the NHL a hard time and making it a punch line for their tired jokes, but is it really in any worse shape than the NBA? Sure, the NBA has a better TV deal, and has never made the mind-numbingly idiotic mistake of canceling an entire season, and has never had a league champion that plays in a region where auto racing is more popular (Carolina Hurricanes, I’m looking in your direction!) but that’s about it for the NBA’s perceived superiority; attendance is roughly comparable, and one only needs to compare the fortunes of two teams in the same market, like our Flyers and Sixers: the Flyers sell out nearly every game, have completely reinvented themselves after a disastrous season, and are legitimate contenders for a division title. Meanwhile, the Sixers have a guy dressed as a rabbit, and can’t even remember to tell people about their own lame promotions. Which league do you want to get behind?