NBA Needs to Return to the Old School

I wanted to take a moment to discuss the NBA, more specifically David Stern's revelation that the league stands to lose $400 million this season.

Oh how the mighty have fallen.

At one point in the early to mid 1990's, the NBA threatened to overtake the NFL as the top sport, riding the backs of its stars (Jordan, Johnson, Barkley, Bird, etc.) but something happened along the way. Some will sit down and blame a labor dispute, while others will discuss how fans are disinterested in the so-called "hip-hop" culture of the league, but there's something else going on here.

David Stern forgot how to market his league and his players.

Think about it, the NBA was the top dog during the early 1990's, taking advantage of baseball's labor dispute to make people forget about the national pastime and leapfrog past it. David Stern and his team were labeled as marketing geniuses who had somehow blown up the NBA into a bigger than life spectacle that had to be seen at every stop. They had likable players that everyone knew and idolized. They smartly added their players to the Olympic roster and capitalized off of the Team USA patriotism. Long and short, they knew how to create interest in their players and endear them to the fans.

Let's take Michael Jordan for example. Stern and his people knew Jordan was going to a huge resource for them. Here he was, a dynamic talent who wowed fans in ways the league hadn't seen before. They made sure he landed in a large market. They smartly pushed him on the fans, saturating the market with his face, his videos, and his merchandise. And even while Jordan was cocky and headstrong, he still connected with the fans. You wanted to be Jordan, even if you weren't fan.

Now, take today's star players. Kobe, LeBron, Carmelo, and any of the other so-called next generation of stars, while they all have their popularity, not a one of them has the fans eating out of their hands the way that Jordan, Magic, Bird, or any of the previous generation did. Not one of them seems to care about the fans. They care about their numbers, both the ones they are putting up and the ones they are putting away in their bank accounts. They've forgotten that the fans drive the game that they pack the seats and buy the merchandise.

Long and short of it, they've taken the fan for granted.

So what does Stern need to do to turn this thing around? Well, he has $400 million reasons to find himself a fresh face, that he can mold and make the fans care about because let's face it, the current crop of stars are more villains than heroes and nobody's buying into it. The league needs a player that can transcend the game and bring in a new crop of fans, who both want to play the game and want to be a part of the game.

Who is that player? Well, I can't tell you. It'll take a few years of reprogramming the current crop of NBA wannabes playing college ball now, changing their mindset from the big payday to the big stage. Until that time, the NBA has to get its current players to reach out to the fans, to make them feel like they are a part of what's going on, to have a vested interest in the game, its teams, and its players. They need to promote rivalries, especially new ones. They need to encourage parity and they need to make some of their perennial cellar teams into contenders, and quickly.

Unless those things happen, and soon, the NBA won't stand for the National Basketball Association. It'll stand for Never Be Again and it would be a shame to flush all of that history with it.

The NBA needs to inject itself with some of that old school approach and fast because the new school is killing it.