Leagues that make less money tend to have fewer repercussions
David Ortiz awkwardly waddles toward the mound after a couple of up-and-in fastballs and a taunt further fueled my love of sports last Thursday night. Third-year USC business student Joe Mitchell coined “the rush of the mound.” It’s one of the purest moments in sports.
In the NBA, teammates rush in instantaneously as a fight begins; in hockey, players go at it in a structured manner. But in baseball, the four seconds when the batter freely rushes the mound with a head full of steam and momentum and takes a swing or two is epic. Then, everyone rushes in and chaos ensues like a 72-year-old Don Zimmer being thrown to the ground by Pedro Martinez.
Being a professional athlete requires adrenaline and sometimes other substances to be flowing through the veins. Fights happen. Different major sports athletes handle fighting in various ways, but leagues should not deter fights too heavily.
The NBA wanted to clean its image in 2004. On Nov. 19 in Auburn Hills, Michigan, Ron Artest escalated a fight between the Indiana Pacers and the Detroit Pistons when he rushed into the stands after being struck by a cup of Diet Coke. The NBA sent a message by suspending nine players. Artest was suspended a total of 86 games and lost about $5 million in salary.
The next day we had the USC vs. Clemson brawl. The ACC was weak on suspensions and allowed Clemson to stagger its suspensions the next season because its first game was a big out-of-conference matchup against Texas A&M. Fans don’t really care if football players fight.
Fighting is revered in the NHL. It’s used to fire up teammates and the crowd. It’s a momentum and game changer. It’s the equivalent of a manager in baseball getting ejected or an NBA coach getting a technical foul. However, in those sports, the players get ejected for fully expressing their emotions. The NHL doesn’t eject players for fighting; they only go to the penalty box for a few minutes. The league permits the violence because that’s what the audience wants to see.
It comes down to marketing the $100 million and $1 billion industries. On television we see the most marketable game to the normal $30,000-a-year fan, not the best game. We watch what gets $1 million sponsorships and television deals to leagues, teams and players. NBA players’ average salaries are $5 million.
People evidently do not want to see a bunch of rich guys fighting, but NHL players make a modest average of $2.4 million, and we love to see them fight. How do the makeups of the players in the NHL and NBA differ? Unfortunately, it has to do with the clear inherent racist attitudes of the fans. Corporate America does not want to have a bunch of reckless fighting unless fans accept it. They want people who play the games the “right” way to smile and drop those countless clichés in postgame press conferences.
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