[QUOTE=WestSideBilly,Oct 24 2005, 04:27 PM] "non-ghetto" folks outnumber "ghetto" folks by a wide margin, and likely have a lot more money to spend on such things.

The league and teams make money by selling advertising on TV games and by ticket revenue (not sure, but I suspect about 2/3 of it is from their TV deals).

 

Of course there are some exceptions, like your example. I am talking about people that were them to go OUT at night or wear them to clubs, bars, restaurants at night.

 

There is a diffrence between having advertisers and having advertisers willing to pay enough to pay your (arguably overpaid) employees. TV ads are priced based on ratings. Just because MacDon's Steakhouse is the official heart attack of the NBA doesn't mean they're paying as much as the NBA would like.

 

True, but this still doesn't mean that there's any correlation between how players dress and viewership/advertising rates. I understand the basics of how advertising works. What I don't see is the direct link between players' dress and how much money the NBA can make from advertising.

I don't find it hard to believe that some fans would be disappointed in the current NBA. What I find hard to believe is that enough would be disappointed and curb viewership simply because of how players dress. I think there is something else going on that won't be addressed by the dress code.

 

IMO the most telling question is, prior to the big recent fuss over the dress code, how many people said to themselves, "I'm not going to watch the NBA anymore because the players dress poorly"? If that's a lot of people, then I'd be surprised. IMO it wasn't an issue until the NBA made it one.

The dress code is no doubt trying to clean up the NBA's image. And that's a fine goal. What I'm saying is that trying to achieve it by enforcing a dress code isn't going to work. That's trying to cover up the symptoms without addressing the problem. So now all you're going to have is a bunch of well-dressed but still selfish and criminal players. As we've all seen over the last few years, even well-dressed, supposedly respectable businessmen can be crooks.

It's funny too that the NBA is claiming to be cleaning up its act by introducing a dress code. If it really wanted to clean things up, it'd just kick out all the players who have been convicted of crimes. But guess what -- some of those are your best players who sell out arenas and increase your bottom line. The NBA isn't dumb. It cares about money as much as the greediest players you can name. Instead of fixing the actual problems, it's hoping that the dress code will fool viewers into thinking something's changed when it actually hasn't. Ironically, Tim Duncan has called the dress code "retarded" and I think any NBA fan can agree that he's the one of the least "hip hop" superstars out there.

 

I agree that there is more wrong with the game than just the players' off-court appearance. Making the players more appealing to mainstream sports fans is important though. I'm not sure if I speak for disinterested fans, but I have a hard time supporting a player who is more interested in his image and selling rap albums than he is practicing free throws.

 

As do I. But I'm saying that the dress code won't change that. Now Artest will still be promoting his rap album, but he'll be wearing a suit on the way to games.

I still don't feel that mainstream sport fans care about how players dress. But none of us can substantiate whether that is or isn't so without hard numbers, which I don't have. In my estimate, for every fan who would turn away from a sport because of how its players dress, there will another fan at the opposite end of the spectrum who identities with and gravitates toward the game due to how its players dress. The rest of us normal folks lie somewhere in-between on that continuum.

 

cyber_x, you need to understand how the advertising world works as a whole and not just cite couple (questionable) examples. It's quite simple really. Networks get paid according to the viewership rating of the program. The more revenue the program brings in, the more networks will pay and compete against each other to bid for the program's right. The rating for NBA has dropped uccessively over the last 7-8 years (and so has its TV revenue), while NFL and MLB skyrocketed.

From an obvervation standpoint, I seem to remember there were more people wearing NBA apparels (more in forms of team jacket, sweaters and t-shirt) than today. The sport fans that used to wear NBA apparels now favor NFL and MLB apparels.

 

And it all starts with media research companies like Nielsen who gather ratings information, compile results, release them in market studies, and those ratings are what advertisers companies use to negotiate rates, right? I can't claim to be an expert on advertising, but I have a basic knowledge of how it works.

My question is this: How will enforcing a dress code increase viewership? Is the reason NBA viewership has dropped off due to poorly dressed players?

 

The dress code is to help mask the ghetto-ness of the players, if you will. It'll help NBA's overall image. I have no doubt there are many more people who favor a clean-cut player than those who favor one w/ a ghetto image.