The NFL’s conference championships have just wrapped up, and America has its eyes firmly set on next Sunday’s Super Bowl where the Philadelphia Eagles will be taking on the defending back-to-back champions, the Kansas City Chiefs. Fans of both teams are sure to check in, both in person in New Orleans and at couches and sports bars across the two cities, but the rest of the nation will be watching for a reason that goes beyond simple allegiances: Hate.
While Americans love a winner, they love to hate a dynasty. The New York Yankees were looked on as the Evil Empire during their run through the 90s and early 2000s. While the Cowboys may have been known as America’s Team during their rein of greatness, they were hated by more than they were loved. The Chiefs are in the thick of their heel-turn right now. The team that was once thought of as the plucky young upstarts, who mercifully unseated the Patriots from their AFC throne, are now the very thing that they destroyed for New England a half decade ago.
It certainly feels different this time around with the Chiefs. The Patriots always felt like the bad guys. They were coming out of the Boston area which was enjoying a bonanza of multi-sport success, with World Series wins, an NBA title, and a Stanley Cup to match. The NFL saw this resentment and just kind of leaned in, allowing fans to feel justified. These days though the NFL compounds the hate by shoving Mahomes, Kelce, and Reid down fans throats, like the Trunchbull forcing that fat kid to eat the chocolate cake in Matilda. Even if fans settled down to watch another team, say the Buccaneers or the Falcons, they still have to suffer through the Chiefs’ main characters popping up to try and sell us bundled home and auto insurance, credit score boosters, or chunky soup. And let’s not even get started on Taylor Swift, that could be a whole essay in itself.
As annoying as this is, it works. The NFL hasn’t just been their normal dominant selves these past seasons. They’ve built on their empire and are making the NBA look considerably exposed as they limp into winter with uncharacteristically low ratings. Much discourse has been made about the cause of these low ratings, with some pointing to how optimized the game has gotten now that everyone knows how to drive to the net or hit corner threes. Others point to the abundance of confusing gimmicks like the constant changes to the All-Star Game or the new In-Season Tournament. However the most glaring, is actually the lack of narrative.
Take yourself back to 2010. You just got off of a team deathmatch in Modern Warfare 2. You couldn’t hear any of your teammates because you set your Xbox 360’s audio to a playlist of Jay-Z, Drake, Eminem, Kanye West, and Lil Wayne. You may not know it, but the NBA as you know has been changed for the next four years. LeBron James, who was thought to be the anointed one who’d carry the banner of the NBA that Kobe left behind, has become the devil incarnate.
Rather than become the conquering hero LeBron chose to embody the false messiah out of the book of Revelations. His followers were branded with the mark of the beast and Cleveland was sent into a heartbroken riot (that really actually makes them look super entitled in retrospect.) There was a concern that the NBA didn’t have a hero but a villain as its face, but here’s the thing, it worked.
Social media and hot take artists dominating the sports analysis landscape has amplified the energy and vitriol that hate can bring. Fans of other teams get both invested in their own team’s success and the opportunity to finally be the ones to take down the proverbial big bad wolf. By the time the “LeBron as villain” experiment reached its zenith in 2014, the NBA had an ensemble of potential champions all ready to dance and pose by Pitbull for, legitimately, one of the best sports promos of all time.
Who do you remember cheering for? Was it the anti-big-3 of OKC? The fundamentally sound and tough as nails Pacers? The Lob City Clippers? Or the Old Guard out of San Antonio? Regardless of who you liked, all these factions had one thing in common. They wanted to be the one to send LeBron packing. Every game, regardless of if LeBron was even in it, was a step toward the peak of Mount Doom.
The same thing is happening in the rap game right now. The drama created by Drake “going bad” has led people to side taking, not even entirely with Kendrick, just to see the torch bearer go down, not in sales or anything tangible like that, but in a public battle that they witness either on TV or listen to via the music.
Right now, the NBA lacks *that*. LeBron is the older statesman that Kobe was late in his career. Sure the Warriors are the reason for the game becoming the optimized mess that it is now, but that means their big crime is just “being very good at NBA meta.” Even as Draymond Green continues his crusade to punch every NBA player in the nuts, nobody really hates the Warriors how we all hated the Heatles.
College basketball comparatively has villains in spades thanks to their coaches being at the forefront of the sport. Dan Hurley has no issues being the bad guy for not just the Big East but all of college basketball, and the sport is better for it. The antagonism of coaches from Mic Cronin to the shady dealings of guys like Bruce Pearl and Will Wade help define the sport in terms of good and bad, heroes and antiheroes. Everyone hated Coach K but he was as galvanizing a force as we’ve ever seen in any level of basketball. The coaches, loved and derided, create real cultures within their college programs in a way that the NBA cannot seem to replicate. This could be one of many reasons why March Madness does consistently better ratings wise than the NBA playoffs.
There’s just no narrative to the NBA. It’s become the exact of opposite of pro wrestling, where it’s just two guys playing a sport for real but ultimately devoid of any intrigue. Beyond being born in one of the cities that the two teams represent, why should you care who wins or loses?
Ultimately the NBA needs someone to do something that garners an emotional reaction, but is ultimately harmless, as-in nothing that needs a lawyer’s involvement. Being good at basketball isn’t enough. Being likeable will only get these stars so far. Fans need someone they can point their finger to and say “That’s the bad guy.” The fans are yearning to say hello to the Bad Guy.
