Rebuilding = Irrelevant?

I just went over to Boston.com to see if there were any updates posted on KO's injury from last night. I know Tom Brady's balls have deflated, and the Pats are going to the Superbowl, but there was zero Celtics coverage on the sports page - not even an AP article on their win last night. Even the Red Sox had more coverage, and their season doesn't even start for 2 months. There were barely any recent articles on their Celtics sub-page, except one that talks about Rondo's play in Dallas, and Jeff Green's play in Memphis. The articles that were there talked about various trades, one about LeBron, one about KG, and one about the Bruins for no apparent reason. All of these were above the 'article' about last night's win, which consisted of one sentence, "Evan Turner's late 3-pointer would prove to be the difference as the Celtics defeat the Blazers 90-89."

Amazing that even from the hometown paper, the Celtics are currently invisible. I wonder what this is doing to team revenue? Who wants to buy tickets or merchandise for an invisible team? Bet people are lining up for their Shavlik Randolph 2nd Coming T-Shirts as we speak.

And no mention at all of Kelly's injury. Guess no one at the Glob stayed up late enough last night to actually watch the game.

-V

http://www.celticsblog.com/2015/1/23/7876543/boston-celtics-beat-portland-trailblazers-90-89-lose-kelly-olynyk-to-sprained-ankle


On the injury front, it looks like we're going to lose Kelly Olynyk for at least the rest of the road trip and probably a few weeks to what looked like a badly sprained right ankle. The team has a quick turnaround with a back-to-back in Denver tomorrow night. Coupled with Brooklyn's loss in Los Angles, the Celtics are now only three games from the 7th and 8th seed of the playoffs.

The Globe is a shell of its former greatness, so they are far from a good source for judging the health of the local support of the Celtics.

Having said that, Boston sports fans:

a) are very spoiled these days and are becoming more and more of what I could call "front runners
b) have always considered the Celtics 4th of the major 4 franchises in town. Even when the Celtics were perennial champions and the Bruins were also rans - the Bruins sold significantly more tickets than the Celtics.
c) I have to say that there is a racial component to this, that is part of the unspoken undercurrent of the city.

Basketball is an urban sport that is dominated by African American players, so it has never been as popular as Baseball or Hockey - even as far down as the youth level. As the Celtics ebb and flow and the racial makeup of their roster changes, I see very big swings in popularity and fan support.

After all that, the TD Garden is still about 94% full during Celtics games - which is much better than the Wizards, Hawks, Pacers and Suns - all teams that are a lot better in the standings. The place is full of young people, which bodes well for the future of the organization and popularity in the city.

So I am not surprised that a bad team who played a late game during the week of Deflate-gate and the week before the Superbowl didnt get a lot of coverage.

Baron,

What time did you access Boston.com for the game story?  I just accessed Boston.com's story on the Celtics game, and it's dated 1.24.15 at 1:02 a.m. EST.  According to my last post on the Game-on Thread, the game ended at 11:29 EST.  In the intervening hour and a half, the writer had to write the story; then (s)he had to file it with the Globe; then it had to be edited; then it went through the printing process, and then it appeared in print.  Is an hour and a half too much to allow for all that, even in this technological age?

If you want more immediate information in the future, I suggest you google "NBA SCORES" and select any one of the sites that pop up—ESPN, Yahoo, etc.  They're right up to the minute, and they even include play-by-play trackers if you want more detail.

Sam

Mrkleen,

You made a very interesting comment: "As the Celtics ebb and flow and the racial makeup of their roster changes, I see very big swings in popularity and fan support."

Just out of curiosity, exactly how do you measure the "very big swings in popularity and fan support" and correlate them directly with the "Celtics ebb and flow and the racial makeup of their roster?"

Not trying to be confrontational, but that's a pretty neat thing to pull off. As a professional statistician, and as someone who's been interested in the racial dynamics of Boston's sociology all of my adult life, I'd be interested in the measurement and correlation processes you use. For example, how do you measure "popularity" and "fan support?" And how do you differentiate how much change in "popularity and fan support" is due to the Celtics' "ebb and flow" and how much is due to "racial makeup of their roster?"

I'm not talking about other aspects of your post. Just that one sentence.

Thanks,

Sam

Sam

Couple of things to start with.  The idea that Boston is a very segregated city with a long and checkered history in terms of race relations is not hard to substantiate.  It is also not hard to find stories about how unfriendly the city was to Black athletes, particularly in the 1960s.  Bill Russell wrote extensively about this in a number of his books, and didnt even attend the retiring of his own number in 1972.  The Red Sox were owned by a self proclaimed bigot, and were the last team in baseball to integrate.  Boston does not have a very good history when it comes to race relations.

Now, I am well aware that unlike the Sox, the Celtics and Red were progressive in this regard -as the first team with an all black starting 5, but that in no way means the city embraced them or the team in any real way. As you know better than I, when the Celtics were busy winning 8 banners in a row - their home attendance was awful - around 60% of what the Bruins (who were bottom of the league) would bring in.



When Russell tried to move from his home in the Boston suburb of Reading to a new home across town, neighbors filed a petition trying to block the move. When that failed, other neighbors banded together to try to purchase the home that Russell wanted to buy, said Tom Heinsohn, a close friend of Russell’s who played with him from 1956 to 1964. Once, vandals broke into Russell’s home and defecated on his bed. Heinsohn said two white sportswriters from Boston told him they wouldn’t vote Russell the league’s most valuable player because he was Black.

Russell’s achievements during his days in Boston, from 1956 to 1969, drew national acclaim but never won locals fans’ hearts the way later Boston sports heroes did, from hockey player Bobby Orr to baseball player Carl Yastrzemski to basketball player Larry Bird. Despite all the rings, the Boston Garden averaged 8,406 fans during Russell’s playing career, thousands short of a sellout. "We always sold out on the road, but rarely when we played at home," said Satch Sanders, who played with the Celtics from 1960 to 1973. By contrast, the Celtics teams led by Larry Bird in the 1980s sold out the 14,890-seat Garden for 662 straight games, from 1980 to 1995. "I didn’t play for Boston," he once said, "I played for the Celtics." Another time he called Boston a "Flea Market of Racism."

http://www.counterpunch.org/2004/06/23/quot-a-flea-market-of-racism-quot/

Now lets jump up to modern times.  

Based strictly on attendance - the Celtics are 4th out of 4 in Boston, in terms of both attendees and percentage of capacity



So the Celtics are less popular based on attendance....so what about public opinion, well they come in 4th there as well.  In 2012 (3 years closer to the last banner), Channel Media and Market Research surveyed fans on their views on the local teams - here are some of the results

http://cbsboston.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/2012-ne-sports-survey.ppt



All of this saddens me, as I love the Celtics AND the City of Boston.  I grew up in Boston.  Went to elementary school and middle school (from age 5) in Roxbury and Dorchester.  I want to Boston Latin Academy for HS which was across the street from Fenway.  I worked at the Boston Garden, lived in Charlestown, Mission Hill, Somerville, East Boston, South Boston - I know Boston, trust me.

I dont think it is the same kind of blatant, ignorant racism that was around in the 60s and 70s that causes the Celtics to be 4th out of 4 in the city.  But insidious or not, I dont see the connection between the players not mirroring the city as a whole - and the popularity of the sport and the team.  

Now, you may argue that it is impossible to connect the dots from a racist history and current attendance and popularity numbers, but I dont see it as a difficult correlation to make at all.  We have the backdrop of a city with a long and well documented history of racism....and a team that played in a half empty Boston Garden until Larry Bird showed up.

Sam,

It was the next afternoon, so more than 12 hours after the game ended. That's why I was surprised not to see anything. I watched the game live so wasn't looking for the box score, but rather an update on the injury that occurred during the game. Just surprised me that there was so little information there.

-V