The No. 5 Market vs. the No. 6 Market

I just noticed that the Dallas Mavericks will face the Miami Heat in this year's NBA Finals series. I don't watch it any more because once pro sports so consumed my psyche that in 1998 I stopped giving any attention to it, cold turkey. Therefore, it was just today I caught which two teams made it.

I am somewhat interested in who's playing in the NBA Finals though, because I noticed something four years ago that was quite interesting, and I use this statistical piece to help make my case that pro sports manipulates competitive integrity so that the economic viability of the given sport is sustained. That is, because teams from the larger metropolitan areas can always generate more revenue for the entire league than teams from smaller ones, those larger teams are given certain advantages to aid their success. When the inherent integrity of sports is exploited through such items as free agency, it is indeed no different than giving one team three points per basket whereas the other team only gets two.

That statistic? Since 1956, every match-up in the NBA Finals has featured at least one team from a metropolitan area of the United States ranked in the top ten in population. In other words, for the past fifty straight years, the NBA Finals has not once featured two teams from metropolitan areas not ranked in the top ten in population.

Yes, I understand that for many years in the 50's and 60's most of the teams in the entire league were from the highly populated areas. But that does not explain the 70's onward, and today there are twelve teams in the top ten areas and 28 in the non-top-ten areas.

This year you've got Dallas ranked at number 5 and Miami ranked at number 6. (Only New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Philadelphia are larger) There is no question the NBA likes this, because it means more interested parties paying up to be engaged in the Finals. I contend that things happen to make it like that, and as such competitive integrity is destroyed.

Oh, and by the way, the last time two non-top-ten teams played in the Finals? In 1955? It was the Syracuse Nationals playing the Fort Wayne Pistons. Syracuse won.

For a bit more on my take on all of this, go here.

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