What you will see in video above, is LeBron James‘ impact on NBA fans. Fans sobbing, burning Miami Heat #6 jerseys, video games, a mass hysteria all around. This took place just hours, no, merely minutes after he had told www.si.com that he was “coming home”. Now, this may seem like a few hundred disheartened fans, but this isn’t the first time a city has gone up in arms over LeBron leaving, as you can see below:
Now, majority opinion says LeBron is the greatest basketball player today, but he isn’t the only one creating an impact on Americans, or anyone else for that matter. Kobe Bryant has been a prominent figure in the city of Los Angeles, California for 18 years in the making. Now, if you attend just about any school, you may hear a chorus of “Kobe!” chants after a paper ball has been thrown successfully into a trash can or maybe you hear it while attending a High School basketball game. The NBA Playoffs and the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the NHL basically went head-to-head this year. Game 5 of the NBA Finals, in which the San Antonio Spurs clinched the NBA Championship by defeating the Miami Heat, had 18 million viewers. Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals, in which the Los Angeles Kings defeated the New York Rangers, only had 2.6 million viewers. In 2004, even though it was a short period of time, the Detroit sports fans had abandoned Hockeytown and their beloved Detroit Red Wings for the soaring Detroit Pistons. In the 1990’s, the Chicago sports fans united over one team and one player in particular: Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. Even China had united over a player, Yao Ming, who was a mainstay in Houston for a while.
Why is America’s pastime, baseball, is now being seen as the second option or lower in the eyes of sports viewers? What drives and pulls people to enjoy basketball? Could it be that basketball players are viewed as role models? People may have grown tired of the old pastime and found a new one, containing more consistent action like running. It could be that basketball contains factors the viewers of now find most appealing: skill, mixed with a little ego, passion, desire, and a few paychecks instead of the athletes looking at a diamond, rink, or field and seeing nothing but paychecks like they do nowadays. There could be a plethora of reasons behind the popularity of basketball, but, like most things in life, there is no definitive answer. It could be that the improbable usually happens on a basketball court, whereas almost everything in every other sport can almost easily be predicted. As I stated previously, there is no definitive answer. So, I ask all readers, is basketball the new American Pastime?
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