National Basketball Association: the Culture of Franchising - Research Paper Example

? National Basketball Association Number: The National Basketball Association, also known by its acronym NBA, is North America’s chief men’s professional basketball league. Its immenseness is underscored by it having thirty franchised member clubs, with 29 being in the United States and the other located in Canada. By virtue of its immenseness, the NBA is considered the premier men’s professional basketball league globally. As an active member of the USA Basketball (USAB) and being recognized by the International Basketball Federation (FIBA), the NBA serves as the national governing body for basketball throughout the United States. Not only is the NBA among the four main North American professional sports leagues but its players are also the world’s most lucratively paid sportsmen, going by the average annual salary per player. Many attribute the success of the NBA to its culture and the manner in which it has managed to integrate its culture to its operations and goals, as will be seen in the discussion which ensues forthwith. First, it is important to consider the fact that the NBA has a wide culture, with this wideness taking on both formal and informal aspects. The formal culture of the NBA has mainly been consistent with the organizational policies, while the informal one has mainly been subject to socio-cultural preferences. According to Maymin, Maymin, and Shen (2011), to show for the similarity between NBA and business culture, NBA has also used creations and mergers to extend itself. Having been founded in 1946, the Basketball Association of America merged with NBL on August 3rd, 1949. This development culminated into the creation of the National Basketball Association. To extend its interests further, NBA has used franchising as its business culture. NBA in 1949 had 17 franchises that at the time were located in large and small cities, and large and small arenas. Through the 1950s, NBA consolidated its 11 franchises. In a closely related wavelength, it is important to note that NBA has also used contraction to move its franchises that had been located in smaller cities to get to larger cities. For instance, it is against this backdrop that the Hawks moved from Quad Cities to Milwaukee, then to Missouri, St. Louis, while the Royals moved from Rochester, New York, to Cincinnati. In the same respect, Pistons moved from Indiana (Fort Wayne) to Detroit in 1957. The culture of merging, franchising and contraction started from the need to expand. The growth of NBA into national and regional importance and the global recognition of NBA as the principal basketball league in the United States underscore the success of these management cultures- franchising, merging and contracting. One of the informal cultures of NBA is its identification with the African American and hip hop culture. The fact that rappers such as Sean Carter and Cornell Iral Hayness Jr. are major stakeholders in NBA teams (namely, Charlotte Bobcats and Brooklyn Nets respectively), underscore this. In like manner, a number of artists have managed to wear NBA throwback jerseys in their music videos. Likewise, NBA plays hip hop and rap music in basketball arenas during games. As if this is not enough, NBA video games NBA Live, ABC-ESPN and NBA 2K use hip hop music in their soundtracks and coverage. Some of the players in NBA have rapped or tried to rap, with Shaquille O’Neal, Tony parker, Kobe Bryant, Chris Webber, Allen Iverson and Metta World Peace serving as examples of these basketball-players-cum-rappers. It is also not at all uncommon to find several NBA players who act or dress in ways that are consistent with rap and hip hop culture. It is for this same reason that many NBA players and members wear jewelry and spot tattoos, both inside and outside basketball courts. A. Maymin, P. Maymin, and Shen (2011) contend that the close affiliation between the NBA and hip hop culture dates back to the late 1970s. This development follows the fact that the 1970s fall within the Cold War and civil rights era where the African Americans began to get empowered and thus, their presence started being felt in the corporate, sports and recreational sectors. It is also at this time that hip hop culture sprang and began to grow increasingly popular. As the number of African Americans continued to gain a higher influx, hip hop culture gradually started to infiltrate the NBA as African American players sought to identify with hip hop culture, citing the socio-cultural heritage as a reason for this affiliation. According to McCann (2010), the close association between the NBA and hip hop culture is also exemplified by the level of culture (such as artifacts, rituals, values and symbols) that is attributed to it. The symbol that denotes the NBA is an image of a man sprinting and dribbling a basket ball in his left hand, with blue colored background on his right and a red colored one on his left. The entire image is encapsulated in a rectangular form, with the acronym NBA emblazoned at its lower right position. Although the image is free of any racial undertone or identification, the close association of the NBA with hip hop culture imbues a subliminal sense that the image is a depiction of an African American. Nevertheless, despite the positive results that have been realized following the close association of the NBA with hip hop culture, several drawbacks have also been identified. For instance, the same has given the NBA bad press, with accusations that the NBA is racially polarized towards African Americans flowing incessantly. Others have claimed that because of the NBA’s failure to distance itself from the negative aspects and influence of hip hop culture. The NBA is also at the risk of earning a corporate image of a conduit for crime and other social ills. It is against this backdrop that since 1998, the NBA’s ratings have plummeted significantly to the point that some columnists have referred to the NBA as a violent league and NBA players as thugs and miscreants. However, some attribute the NBA’s dwindling TV ratings to Michael Jordan’s retirement and the subsequent decline of Chicago Bull’s fame. Some such as McCann (2010) have also dismissed these criticisms as hypocritical, citing the fact that the National Hockey League (NHL) is closely associated with rock music yet it is seldom criticized for the same. They point out that the NASCAR is closely associated with country music and the proneness of the Major League Baseball, National Football League and NHL to crime as facts that illustrate the biasness of criticisms that are leveled at the NBA. At the moment, the NBA has tried to work on its level of culture in order to assuage the barrage of accusations of its inordinate identification with hip hop culture. Particularly, the NBA has tried to rework its dressing code in order to disassociate itself with hip hop culture since 2005. Resultantly, the NBA’s dress code proscribes the wearing of jewelry, headphones, throwback jerseys and indoor sunglasses. Instead, players have been prevailed upon to use casual business clothing. Although the need to distance the NBA from hip hop was the antecedent factor that catalyzed the introduction and ratification of the dress code, the infamous Pistons-Pacers brawl in 2004 also played a critical role in necessitating it (Grow, 2012). Resultantly, the effort which under the tutelage of David Stan as the Commissioner gave the NBA a new culture has eventually helped shape the activities and identity of the organization. Some of the resultant activities that have been brought on board include the incorporation of various music artists from different genres to perform in NBA functions in lieu of hip hop culture monopoly. For instance, in the famous 2005 NBA All-Star Game, Big and Rich (as America’s most renowned country music artists) performed, albeit at halftime. The image or identity that the NBA is currently and resultantly earning is that of an outfit that is trying to be impartial and fair to all races and the cultural aspects that different races carry with them. References Grow, N. (2012). Decertifying players union: Lessons from the NFL and NBA lockouts of 2011. Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law, 13 (3), 75. McCann, M. (2010). American Needle v. NFL: An opportunity to reshape sports law. Yale Law Journal, 119 (10), 726. Maymin, A., Maymin, P., & Shen, E. (2011). How much trouble is early foul trouble? Strategically idling resources in the NBA. NYU Policy Research paper, 4 (3), 123-5. Read More