The Most Conservative Sport?

Essayist Chuck Klosterman writes about popular culture as a music critic and sometimes-sports commentator. In a recent article for ESPN, he writes about why he is a football fan. The gist of Klosterman's argument is that football is a sport with an amazing slight-of-hand : it passes itself off as a conservative sport in terms of its values but is actually the most liberal sport in terms of game innovation. As a socially conservative sport, it will always appeal to those who believe in paternalism and macho toughness - as well as what he calls a "reactionary" sports media. (*) However, as Klosterman puts it:

What the NFL has realized is that they have no better marketing tool than the game itself. Every other sport tries to fool us. Baseball sells itself as some kind of timeless, historical pastime that acts as the bridge to a better era of American life, an argument that now seems beyond preposterous. The NBA tries to create synergy with anything that might engage youth culture (hip-hop, abstract primordial competition, nostalgia for the 1980s, the word "amazing," Hurricane Katrina, etc.). NASCAR connects itself to red state contrarianism. Soccer aligns itself with forward-thinking globalists who enjoy fandom more than sports. But football only uses football. They are the product they sell. Unlike David Stern's failed vision for the NBA, the NFL Network does not try to expand its empire by pushing the sport toward nonchalant audiences with transitory interest; it never tries to trick anybody into watching something they don't already like.

Later on, Klosterman answers the question about why he thinks football is so compelling - why someone might like football, as opposed to something else. The important point, however, is that other sports attempt to sell something other than the game itself - nostalgia or some form of social contrarianism. Since the NFL only sells the game, as it were, the game is endlessly reinvented and tinkered with. If the schedule has to be expanded, why not? Instant replay? Why not? Radios in helmets? Why not? (**)

Despite the high-quality writing, what I found most appealing about Klosterman's essay was the dichotomy between the presentation and the actuality: football presents itself as conservative but is highly innovative. You could apply this dichotomy to other sports:

Sport-Presentation-Actuality

Football - conservative presentation, liberal actuality
Baseball - conservative presentation, conservative actuality
NBA Basketball - liberal presentation, slightly conservative actuality
Soccer - liberal presentation (in the United States), conservative actuality

Unfortunately, this implies that football and baseball are exactly conservative in the same way. Maybe we should use a continuum and give football a "10" on conservative presentation and baseball an "8".

Baseball is a little bit less conservative than football in its presentation - how could a sport that has figures like Jackie Robinson and Bill Lee be truly conservative? - but in terms of the rules it is very conservative. The fundamental rules are to be left untouched; interleague play caused a firestorm and they're still arguing about the designated hitter 30 years later.

Basketball would only get a "4" or a "5" on the presentation scale for conservatism. The sport has two contending social groups, those that think that Bob Cousy is the bee's knees and those that think that LeBron is Da Bomb. In terms of a sport, it hasn't changed that much at all. The 3-pointer is the only major innovation in several years in basketball. (***)

Soccer - in the United States anyway - is seen as a sport that threatens the long-standing reactionary order of sports and would probably get a "2 or 3" on the conservatism scale. In terms of the rules, however, the sport would get a hard "9" or maybe even a "10". I can't think of a major soccer rule change since the Dane's head was first kicked across a field in England.



The above led to wonder where women's basketball fits into these scheme. I came to a startling conclusion. Namely, that the WNBA is sort of the "anti-NFL". The NFL presents itself as a conservative sport but is actually a liberal one; the WNBA presents itself as a liberal sport, but might be the most conservative form of basketball there is.

In terms of the WNBA's presentation, it would be hard to think of a sport with a more liberal consciousness. The WNBA can't seem to decide whether to sell the game itself, or to sell "sisterhood is powerful" - so it sells both. The first campaign for the WNBA was "We Got Next" - "we" being "women" in this case - so in the very first ad campaigns, it wasn't so much the game being sold as the fact that women were playing it. Note that it's not the the NBAW but the WNBA - "women" comes before "basketball".

The sport has an active lesbian fanbase and in terms of the major sports, the individual teams probably do more to recognize their gay fanbase than just about any other sport. (Yes, it's a pitiful job, but when compared to the four major sports the WNBA is almost a consciousness-raising group.) The criticism from the reactionary sports media is that the WNBA - and its fans - are freaks, either too mannish or not mannish enough, choosing whichever cudgel they believe will draw the most blood.

However, the sport itself is very conservative, more conservative that football pretends to be. Hell, the WNBA is more conservative than the NBA! The WNBA doesn't have that weird charge arc in the lane. They haven't adapted the "three steps and dunk" traveling rule that the NBA is so eager to try out. For such liberal thinkers, the WNBA's hard core fans are martinet purists when it comes to their sport. Very few of the dimensions of the women's game are scaled down from the men's game. Maybe the 3-point arc is tweaked a little bit but the same court markings are there. The only major concession is the smaller ball, and some fans don't even like that much change.

There have been calls from sources to perhaps lower the size of the rim a few inches or to shrink the size of the court. Most of those calls have come from those who don't follow the sport. (****) These calls are almost unanimously rejected. There are two reasons why these arguments are rejected. The first is that women's basketball fans want the game not be dominated by athleticism and height, and lowering the rims would tilt the game in that direction. The second is that historically authorities have changed the rules of women's basketball in order to marginalize women's sports. As a result, many women want the game to be as much like the men's game as much as possible.

The problem is that the WNBA is very much like the men's game - the men's game of 1957, before the height of the players had caught up to the dimensions of the court. Furthermore, even though shrinking the size of the court would increasing scoring and not really change the passing game so beloved by WNBA fans, fans want the WNBA's court to remain the size of the men's. (*****)



All right. There are valid arguments for not lowering the rim. There might even be valid arguments for not changing the size of the court. But the reactionary attitude of the WNBA fans to any tinkering at all begs the question: would any change to the WNBA game be welcomed? Is the WNBA going to be like baseball, with its purists fighting off any suggested changes with a flurry of "yes-buts"? It seems that the only criticisms that the WNBA will accepts are ones from "within the academy" so to speak. After all, even your worst enemies might have some good ideas.

Maybe this explains why I like the WNBA so much. What was the sport I was following before I started following the WNBA? Baseball. Maybe, despite my attraction to what I think of as social liberalism, I have a longing for conservative sports.

_____

(*) - There is a ton of discussion - on this blog and others - as to why the WNBA is so slow to gain acceptance in the old media. Maybe the explanation is that "the gatekeepers in traditional sports are reactionary sexist pigs". Frankly, the explanation might need be no more complex than that.

(**) - However, there is something lost in liberalizing the rules of your sport - rule changes and tweaks make it much harder to compare players across eras. It's very easy to compare players across eras in baseball; it's much harder in football.

(***) - The impact of the new charge arc and traveling rules is yet to be seen.

(****) - It appears, unfortunately, that most critics of women's basketball come from the reactionary douchebag school. They'll come up with two or three ideas that might be worth considering, and then torpedo their entire effort with something like "and the players should also all play in lingerie". It's like they have a cognitive version of Tourette's Syndrome.

(*****) - A lot of the arguments that fans use to defend the rules of women's basketball come from cost effectiveness - "We can't change Rule X/Equipment Y because it would be too expensive." The initial arguments against the smaller ball came from the perspective of the bean counter, that it would cothat it would be an unfair costs to high schools and colleges who would now have to purchase separate balls for the women. It's sort of a conservative argument if you think about it.

The Rules of Basketball

I'm going to end my series of mini-posts by discussing the rules of basketball.

On a basketball blog - on a WNBA basketball blog, no less- this might seem like a candidate for Dumbest Post of the Year. If you're reading about the Atlanta Dream, then the WNBA, then the basketball universe in that order, most people would assume that readers would actually know the rules of the game they're reading about.

However, one of the goals of this blog is to make the fan experience as easy as possible. A lot of people who might consider going to an Atlanta Dream game or a WNBA game might be intimidated because - well, they don't know the rules of the game. They feel overwhelmed by the technical terms used to describe the game, they don't understand the insider commentary on television or don't know how to watch a game on television because they don't know what they're seeing.

So to any readers out there who might be in that boat, let me tell you: I was in that boat. I was in that boat until just a few years ago. I didn't follow basketball all that closely until a year ago, when I began to follow it intensely - but not as intensely as those out there who are basketball mavens. I found the plunge into the basketball world fairly confusing. There was no "one place to go" to learn about basketball, and as a result I had to patch my knowledge together from a multitude of sources. I was left to follow my own interests, which means that my knowledge is deep in some places and shallow in others.

When you go to places on the internet to learn "the rules of basketball", the descriptions are horribly wordy. But this wasn't always so.

Back in the day, a man named Dr. James Naismith was a teacher at the YMCA Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts. One of the problems with the PE courses was that there was lots to do outside but there were no interesting games to play inside. Naismith was asked to create a new indoor game. Inspired by some games he played with his friends during childhood, he attached a peach basket to the wall and created a new game.

This game only had 13 rules. That's it. Here they are. The rules aren't as important as the commentary below, because those rules have changed/been added to in the last century. However, the rules provide the framework of the discussion.

(* * *)

1. The ball may be thrown in any direction with one or both hands.

If you've watched basketball, it's a game of ball movement. The object is to get the ball in the basket (duh) and the best way to do that if that if you can't get there yourself, you give it to someone else.

2. The ball may be batted in any direction with one or both hands, but never with the fist.
3. A player cannot run with the ball. The player must throw it from the spot on which he catches it, allowance to be made for a man running at good speed.
4. The ball must be held in or between the hands. The arms or body must not be used for holding it.

There are very special rules for moving the ball. Note Rule #3, that the ball must be "thrown from the spot". In ye ancient days, you could only pass the ball back and forth. Then one player thought, "why can't I just pass the ball to myself by bouncing it against the floor?" and the dribble was born.

Without getting into the complicated rule of the pivot foot, the idea is that you move the ball down the court by dribbling it, and when you stop moving, you have to pass the ball to someone else. If you stop with the ball - if you hold the ball "in or between your hands" - you either have to pass the ball or take the shot. A "double dribble" means that you have tried to start the dribble again, and must give the ball up to the other team.

5. No shouldering, holding, pushing, striking or tripping in any way of an opponent. The first infringement of this rule by any person shall count as a foul; the second shall disqualify him until the next goal is made or, if there was evident intent to injure the person, for the whole of the game. No substitution shall be allowed.
6. A foul is striking at the ball with the fist, violations of Rules 3 and 4 and such as described in Rule 5.


Basically, any infraction of the rules where you make contact with another person is a foul. Theoretically, this is a non-contact sport. If you pick up six of these fouls in a WNBA game, you are removed from the field of play and can't return.

7. If either side make three consecutive fouls it shall count as a goal for the opponents (consecutive means without the opponents in the meantime making a foul).

If a player is fouled while in the act of making a shot, she gets to go to the "free throw line", the line that's in the middle of something that looks like a cylinder. If she made the goal but was fouled doing so, she gets one extra shot. Each free throw is worth one point. If she didn't make the shot because she was fouled, she gets two extra shots at the free throw line, possibly earning two points.

"Big deal. I'll just get my worst player to beat up the best players on the other team. Who cares if she 'fouls out'?" The problem is any foul a player makes is also charged to the player's team. Whenever a team's players rack up five fouls in a quarter, on the fifth foul the opposing team is awarded an extra free throw for that infraction and for any subsequent infractions. Don't foul!

8. Goal shall be made when the ball is thrown or batted from the ground into the basket and stays there, providing those defending the goal do not touch or disturb the goal. If the ball rests on the edge and the opponents move the basket, it shall count as a goal.

A field goal is worth two points. If it's a long field goal, it's worth three points if it's made from beyond that big arching parabola drawn on the court.

9. When the ball goes out of bounds, it shall be thrown into the field and played by the first person touching it. In case of dispute the umpire shall throw it straight into the field. The thrower-in is allowed five seconds. If he holds it longer, it shall go to the opponent. If any side persists in delaying the game, the umpire shall call a foul on them.

Believe it or not, this rule has remained mostly intact. Players have five seconds to bring the ball in after it goes out of bounds; if they cannot they must turn over the ball.

10. The umpire shall be judge of the men and shall note the fouls and notify the referee when three consecutive fouls have been made. He shall have the power to disqualify men according to Rule 5.

There are three referees in the game, and they have the right to call fouls. As for disqualifying players, they are "high level" fouls like technical fouls (get two of those and you're out) or "flagrant fouls" which are so bad that sometimes even if you get just one, you're out.

11. The referee shall be the judge of the ball and decide when it is in play in bounds, to which side it belongs, and shall keep the time. He shall decide when a goal has been made and keep account of the goals with any other duties that are usually performed by a referee.

There's a whole bevy of support persons now - referees don't have to do the whole job anymore. But yes, their word is law.

12. The time shall be two 15-minute halves with five minutes' rest between.

A WNBA game is divided into four ten-minute quarters. There is approximately two minutes of rest between quarters one and two and quarters three and four. The time between quarters two and three is "halftime" which I believe is 15 minutes in the WNBA.

13. The side making the most goals in that time shall be declared the winners.

These days, it's "whoever scores the most points before time expires wins".

(* * *)

All of the other rules are just modifications of the ones above. You now know the basics of basketball. Now go out and cheer!

"Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the Water"

There's a lot of talk on a message board - I'll not say which - regarding an idea to lower the rim in the WNBA to 9 1/2 feet. The current height of the rim in both men's and women's basketball is 10 feet. The argument is that dropping the rim six inches would be a benefit to women's basketball in terms of increased viewership. As Austin Burton put it in the link, "the premise (of the critics) is that if it’s easier for women to dunk, more of them would dunk, and all of a sudden a wave of guys and kids who stayed away from the WNBA would come running to the arena and the TV ratings would skyrocket."

The rest of the article is the argument from the opposition, so to speak. The first counter is that this isn't just a minor change; it changes the fundamental nature of women's basketball itself and changes it to a sport where one player's athleticism can simply dominate the field. The WNBA would suddenly become the Vertical Leap League, one of my long-standing criticisms of men's basketball. His best quote: "Dunking isn’t a main component of basketball. It’s a luxury, a singular move, kind of like a spin move in football. You don’t alter the field of play just to make one move happen more often."

However, women's basketball is already fundamentally a different sport than men's basketball, and the problem with critics is that they try to compare the two as if they were the same. Heavyweight boxing and bantamweight boxing aren't the same thing - they take place in a ring, they both follow the same general rules, but different things happen in each of those rings. One of William Haarlow's Five Rules of League Survival states:

"4. ...There must be an evaluation of alternative formats and rules to make the sport appealing to the widest range of potential patrons and viewers."

So the idea should not be discounted out of hand. The WNBA must be willing to try new things to appeal to people, even if purists - like myself - might find the change offensive. If people want to see dunking as an addition to basketball, we shouldn't discount their wishes out of hand.

However, if I were to go forward with such a plan - there should be a trial run. The WNBA should either get a small "winter league" of players together - some players on the periphery of the WNBA/European basketball would probably play for room and board - and experiment with lowering the rim to 9 1/2 feet to see what comes of it. There's one thing that the WNBA, however, should never do, and that is to just simply throw the new rim height into the mix without giving the players ample warning and without testing to see how the changes would affect field goal percentages.

What would be the effects of changing the rim? It's hard to say, and really hard to guess. Yes, a few more players would dunk - Michelle Snow would probably join Lisa Leslie and Candace Parker on the list of dunkers, and I'm sure those latter two players would probably dunk more frequently on the fastbreak. Shooting percentages would suffer, at least in the short term. One can't say what would happen over time because we don't know how quickly the players would adjust to the new rim height.

It would certainly put the WNBA out of sync with the rest of women's basketball. I doubt that Europe and Asia will move to a 9 1/2 foot basket - Euroball is less dependent on gate receipts. There might be some players in the United States who might just go to Europe and stay there - why change the way you play the game when you can get amply compensated in Europe for not changing at all, and players make more money overseas than they do in the US? Some European stars might decide not to ply their trade in the WNBA, for similar reasons - why go overseas where you don't speak the language, they don't pay you well and you have to play with a shorter rim?

But...what if the adjustments were easy to make, or what if the increase in gate justified it? Lowering the rim might be the start to a new era in women's basketball, and for all we know, the rest of the world would follow suit. ("Just like they play 12 minute quarters all over the world," goes the counter argument - only the NBA does this, and the world remains sold on 10 minute quarters.)

Burton's second argument, however, is hard to discount.

"So really, the only benefit of lowering the rim is that it’d become easier for players to dunk, to please one segment of fans — and yet those people who claim they’d start watching the women’s game if they dunked more often would most likely stop watching after the novelty wore off, anyway."

I'm in firm agreement with Burton on this one. I've been reading on-line essays, dissertations, and the like about men and their relationship to sports, and my conclusion is that if every player in the WNBA had supermodel looks and could dunk the ball like Michael Jordan or Shaquille O'Neal, not only would their be no major increase in attendance - but there would be a large and vocal group of men who would still put down women's basketball.

To simplify a complex argument, some men like sports because it creates a world for themselves, a world where even as spectators they can affirm their own masculinity on a daily basis. The Male Sports Universe is a universe of all-male players, mostly male spectators, all-male announcers, a universe where Men Can Be Men, untouched by Title IX or women's liberation or the demands of women in any way - at least for a few hours out of the day where they can escape the complexities of the real world. These men have problems with women having a professional league and threatening to insert themselves into this Male Dominion. These guys see women's basketball as the first beachhead in an invasion. Dunking would simply be treated as a shot across the bow.

The more vocal detractors would claim that women's basketball wasn't "real" basketball - "they play with a girls' rim!" These guys are like the guys in Little Rascals who have hung the "No Girls Allowed" sign on their clubhouse. And dunking is supposed to get them take down the sign?

I've said it before - the WNBA doesn't need to try to appeal to this particular group of men. The best message the WNBA can send is to simply exist, because by existing it proves that there's more than one path in the world. "Woman" and "jock" no longer have to be mutually exclusive.

On the other hand, we shouldn't look at experiments with rules as attempts to appease one unreachable (and implacable) group of critics. We should look at these experiments on their own merits, and our minds should always be open to change. I'm not averse to lowering the rim if it actually puts more fannies in seats - but I don't want the rule change dumped on the league and I want some proof that lowering the rim will actually be a benefit for attendance. Maybe we could try it in an exhibition game? The Sky played a group of men in an exhibition game this year; why not have a "Lower The Rim" night for an exhibition game and just watch what the hell happens?

Who knows? We might start to get used to dunking. And who knows, maybe some of those residents of the Male Sports Kingdom might cross the border to see what they've been missing.

UPDATE: Q has an excellent article at Rethinking Basketball which touches on the same points.