My most memorable experience was the Nov 19th 2004 brawl in the NBA. The Brawl was between the Indian Pacers and Detroit Pistons. The fight didn’t start until the last minute of the game. That’s when Ben Wallace was fouled hard by Ron Artest from the back. Ben didn’t like the way he was hit so he ran to Ron and push him in his face. This causes both teams to rush to court and start a fight. Only a few players were involved in the fight while the rest of the players try to break it up.
Fights happen all the time in the NBA. The thing that made this so epic was the fact that the crowd got involved in the fight. After Ron Artest was relaxed, someone from the crowd of fans threw a bottle at him. That started him back up again and he ran into the stands to punch the guy in the face. That started another huge fight; Stephen Jackson and Jermaine O’Neal ran into the crowd to help Ron fight the crowd. The police had to come to break the fight up.
The funny thing about everything was that ESPN kept showing the whole fight as it was going on. I would have thought they would stop airing and switch to something else. At the time I never knew why or care I just was happy to see the whole fight. By the next morning it was all on the news. The morning news that doesn’t cover sports unless it was a New York team talked about this game. It was in the New York Post and the Daily Newspaper.
I realize when I got older the reason why they did that was ratings. That is something that the people want to see and hear about. Drama sells ratings and for the whole week it was on the every sports and new channels. It even was on a few talk shows as one of the topics. Every time there was an update to what happen during the game it was breaking news. For example Ron Artest got suspended for the whole season along with Stephen Jackson.
That’s the world we live in where information travels fast and spread like wild fire. Internet, TV, radio if the subject is juicy enough you can find it anywhere. YouTube had the video of the fight within a few hours of it happening.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94XkHoEqJ5E
While I am not a fan of the NBA, this was a brilliant tactic for viewer ratings. Many sports teams that have a partnership/stake in a television program will do something like this if their ratings are sinking. It is a shocking feeling if you love & cherish a certain team or game. Unfortunately for the "malice at the palace" situation, owners and front office workers did not put into account how big a "fight" could get, especially with almost 50 seconds left in a game tensions can get extremely high. It should be a money making tactic, but this cost them about $150mill in charges I think?
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to see from your description of the event how indeed the information that is provided to us through TV is mostly presented as entertainment. Even though the fight must have been serious to the ones involved, the media presents it as entertainment, and the very fact that it is on TV makes it somewhat amusing to us. As you said, you were happy to watch it and to be able to see the whole fight, and as you indicated, it became one of the main stories on the news to attract viewers and increase the ratings for the media channels.
ReplyDeleteOnce again, my memory has failed me! This didn't happen too long ago--a mere 6 years--but I remember it very differently. Nothing like Youtube to revisit this delirious event! Despite definitely hearing about this when it happened, seeing footage and even degrading Artest within my circle of friends and family, I remember it being much less intense. Your reference to this media event triggered me to visit Youtube and watch the fight (just after I read your post) and see it all again before my eyes.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it reminded me of this ...interesting... video a friend of mine had sent me. It's pretty obvious that the public's opinion of Artest dropped drastically after all of this so when my friend told me about Artest's rap video, I was ready to watch and degrade it (call me a troll). I was expecting a bunch of scantily clad women dancing to a song about sex, money, drugs etc. (granted, this is a cliche--forgive me but I thought, "hey, it's Artest, of course he would submit to all of that"). Surprisingly, he's rapping about the plight of Afghan women and while he deserves kudos for shedding light on human rights in a war-torn country (also my birthplace), I just couldn't help bursting out with laughter after watching this. I thought it was ridiculously funny and I think that's due in part because of this brawl defining his demeanor and I guess it also helps that he's a really bad rapper! See for yourself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Xf4ISKspvo