Member-only story
— The league lacks large scale consistent visibility.
The NBA groomed me as a fan early on. It’s not impossible to imagine a universe where I stayed true my whole life, watching multiple games a week, buying tickets and apparel right up to the present day on the cusp of my forties. But that has not happened. Somewhere it lost my attention and judging by the NBA’s own numbers and analysis from media outlets like Fivethirtyeight, I’m not alone.
Somewhere along the line the NBA lost me and a large part of its cultural cache. Even with a powerhouse generation of superstars it has not recaptured its former place. Neither has it been able to hold onto its irregular gains in viewership. I’m not willing to just chalk it up to playing styles. I still enjoy games when I occasionally see one and wouldn’t mind watching…if the games were available to me.
I am a child of 90s basketball. I was a fan in what I’ll call the Dream Team Heyday, coming into a basketball consciousness at the auspicious moment when most of the members of the 1992 Olympic team were in their prime. The first year I paid close attention to the game was the 1991–92 season.
This made me an immediate Bulls fan and a natural basketball card collector. The golden summers when Mcdonalds marketed their basketball card lines, mixing the two finest pleasures a…