NBA in the UK: No Chance

Everything’s hotting up in the NBA playoff battle, defending champions Lakers are out to a clean swipe at the hands of the Mavericks, Chicago claimed their first NBA championship since the Michael Jordan era ended in 1998, and both conference finals lining up to be classics with the each series tied at the time of writing. But why do we hear nothing of this in the UK media?

          Chicago's Derrick Rose (left), the league's youngest MVP, battles against Miami's Dwayne Wade in the Eastern Conference Finals.

ESPN offer coverage of the odd game, but unless you want to pay the extra £10 a month on top of your Sky Sports package, there is no way UK viewers can catch any of the action throughout the year.

Maybe it’s just the same old cynicism towards American sports as there’s always been, but with the Premier League gaining a serious foothold in the U.S. market, maybe it’s time we buried the hatchet and enjoyed some of the great sports the world’s superpower has to offer. But there is one question that confuses me on the issue of American sport.

Why is it people in the UK flock in there millions to watch the Superbowl each year?

Surely there’s a winning formula there? This year’s game was the highest viewed programme in US viewing history, and every year it gains massive viewing figures in the UK from the BBC’s broadcast. 

Yet often with no prior knowledge of the season and even the teams involved, we in the UK settle down too root on the team with the coolest looking quarterback.

But this may not be our fault.

NFL is a sport with intensity and unbelievable athletic ability, yet nowhere is there anywhere to follow it throughout the regular season. So we are faced with a BBC advert a week before the broadcast and unless someone is able to retrace the 250 odd games played, we have no other option than to observe the game purely as a spectacle. Whilst there is nothing wrong with this, and there is no doubt that the magnitude of the event is unrivalled, but as a sports lover, I can’t help but feel lethargic to a game where I have no context on the players or league. From the games I’ve seen in the past, this is a great shame, as I really feel I could get involved in the NFL, if given the chance by broadcasters.

But after the game, normal business is resumed, and we never hear from NFL for the rest of year, unless it’s to do with Christina Aguilera fluffing her lines.

This absence from UK broadcasting obviously has something to do with pricing though, as both NFL and NBA are amongst the most expensive leagues to broadcast in the world. NFL charged nearly $20 billion for broadcasting rights across the U.S.A. in 2007 and FIVE, the only UK station to broadcast any NBA action last year is hardly able to compete with such high prices.  Here is where ESPN come in, securing UK rights to broadcast NBA away from FIVE in 2009,  but for the price of subscription, the few games shown and no highlights show doesn’t seem viable.

But what of online content?

In the whole of 2011, there are only 3 stories concerning the NBA on Sky Sports website, 2 of which concern the appearance of New Jersey soccerettes on Soccer AM and the other relating to London’s 2012 Olympic bid.

This hardly seems ample coverage for the one of the most popular sports in the world?

Stern sees the Olympics as the key to the basketball's success in the UK

Some may argue that the NBA don’t see the benefits of broadcasting in UK due to the minor viewing figures, but as the opening of a London office in 2009 indicated, as well as the introduction of exhibition matches and even the first ever regular season game held outside the U.S. in London’s O2 in March 2011, the NBA’s ambitions of penetrating the European market are clearly apparent. Hoping to follow in the footsteps of the success in China, which has seen a massive expansion in the popularity of the sport, NBA commissioner David Stern sees the London 2012 Olympics as the key to promoting both the sport and the NBA in the UK.

 "We think the Olympics provides a huge opportunity to demonstrate and promote our sport and to show that it is one of great inclusiveness."

But what all of this does is further beg the question, why do we never see basketball coverage in media? The Guardian has a fairly good coverage of the NBA compared to other mainstream media outlets, with 9 stories concerning the league in 2011, yet most of them coming as part of the recurring ‘Planet Sport’ segment which the paper run.

So what of NBA coverage in the UK? Whilst the high prices of broadcasting live games can not really be ignored, the complete absence of any real coverage from any platform of mainstream media seems alarming, and whilst basketball has never gained the popularity of football or rugby in this country, it seems a massive shame to let such a great, fast paced and engaging sport pass us by. Time will tell whether the Olympics will do anything to boost the reputation of the NBA, or whether this is just wishful thinking by Stern, but surely a sport with millions of viewers worldwide deserves a spot in our media, maybe at the expense of horseracing?