Continuing from yesterday, Junk Food Nation: Obviously if NBA revenues are down, it means TV viewership and in-person tickets are down, which means that people are really not watching basketball at all.  And don’t challenge me with March Madness or the NBA Finals – Duh, I know those are popular. ANY postseason ritual for a major sport SHOULD draw spectators.  But revenues come from the whole season, and except for the Miami Heat, no one will remember this past regular season, or any regular season. Its clear that regular season professional basketball is of no interest to people.

But WHY is no one watching it, or putting it another way, why is basketball not as popular as the other sports? Of course, I can only offer my own opinion and my own perspective: why am *I* not watching the NBA?

3) The NBA is different from the other games, and that’s not necessarily a good thing. Baseball is a unique sport.  It’s America’s pastime, and it’s the only one of America’s five major sports (baseball, football, basketball, hockey, soccer – yes, soccer) that is non-contact and played on a non-traditional shaped field. Baseball is popular not only because of its history, but also because there’s no real competition for the type of game that it is (except cricket, but c’mon. Seriously?)

More on comparing basketball to other sports after the jump.  Today’s junk food: Skittles Fizzl’d Fruits!

The Money Shot

Skittles has been manufactured by Wrigley, under the Mars Corp., for almost four decades. Essentially a taffy-like fruit candy with a hard candy shell, Skittles’ slogan has always been “Taste the Rainbow.” They’ve had a number of variations on their flavors, from Original, to Sour, to Crazy Sour, to Crazy Cores, to Wild Berry, etc. I stumbled upon these at a gas station on the way back from Ocean City, Maryland.

Fizzl’d Fruits gave me the impression this was some sort of Pop Rocks and Skittles amalgam. Which sounds…like an accident waiting to happen.

Flavor Profile

Berry Punch, Melon Berry, Raspberry, Strawberry, and Wild Cherry are the flavors represented in this junk food. What, pray tell, is a melon berry? I don’t mind when companies make up flavors, but melon berry stretches it for me – next thing you know there will be apple citrus and Sharktopus flavored candies.

Fun for your mouth should be the slogan of all junk foods

Fizzling fun for your mouth, huh? Well, sign me up. I always felt like Pop Rocks tore the sh*t out of my mouth, so hopefully these aren’t as corrosive.

Also, I need to ask – is replacing the “e” with an ” ‘ ” really necessary? Maybe I’m being too persnickety and this is a fun way to spell things. M’ybe I sh’ld g’ve it a ch’nce.

Powdered for fizzy goodness

Hmmm, based on the name of the junk food, I half expected there to be an explosion of foam when I tore open the package.  But no, just candy. Each candy piece was covered with a thin layer of what I can only assume is fizzy fundust. Time to chew!

L to R: Blue Raspberry, Wild Cherry, Strawberry, Berry Punch and Melon Berry

OK, the one mistake I had in my head (completely based on nothing) was for some reason I equated fizzy to sour. I love sour candies – and these definitely were not. Instead, I put each candy on my tongue and sucked – and the pieces actually did fizz up and burn my tongue! Cool effect.

Each flavor tasted pretty much as listed, with Berry Punch owning a basic mixed berry flavor. Melon Berry, by the way, was really gross.  Started out with a watermelon taste that slowly gave way to a generic fruit punch flavor. Much as that may sound pleasant, it wasn’t.

These candies had a really cool fizzy feeling, but tasted blah. I won’t be having these again, but I give Skittles kudos for wanting to try something new with the flavor sensation.

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Continuing from above:

Besides baseball, each of the other four sports is played on a very similar field – a field that is rectangular with two ends with two goals, that each opposing team defends.

Football is popular, not only because of the agro-ness of it, but frankly because it’s digestible. It’s like a war – the pace of the game is both slow and fast, and there’s stoppage between each play. As a fan, you can rejoin the game at any time with easily discernible breaks. You can focus on only defense or on only offense.  You can watch plays or drives develop.  You can do math and know how many scores are needed to win. The very nature of the game is strategic – like a war.

Hockey and soccer are similar – for one, neither is more popular than basketball, yet their supporters are cult-like.  In hockey and soccer, while scoring is scarce and that bugs a lot of people, for the most part scoring still MEANS something.  For any actual hockey or soccer fans, every single goal is such an effort that they are celebrated immensely even if it took 50 minutes to get there. Plays or drives might take several (or more) minutes to develop, but you can understand what’s happening.  You understand how hard it is to score. The act of scoring, like in football or in baseball, in a GRIND – so when you eek out a goal, a run, a point, it’s amazing.

Then we come to the basketball and the NBA. And I actually LIKE the basketball, mind you. But there are inherent flaws to the game.

First, scoring is almost meaningless until the last four minutes of the game. It is the only sport of the five major sports where scoring is relatively easy and consistently happening all the time – bucket after bucket after bucket.  Sure there are misses and cold streaks, but for the most part, basketball is a race – a race to see who can score MORE; unlike the other sports, where just SCORING is an ordeal. And so no one is excited when a simple basket is made. Does that make sense? In my head it does. In other words, when there is no premium placed on the effort it takes to score, then the excitement level over the actual scoring itself goes down.

Second, moreover, when scoring lacks premium, then individual accomplishments resonate less, IMO. Someone hits 600 home runs, like Jim Thome? It’s an awe-inspiring feat. Someone has over 200 touchdowns, like Jerry Rice? Pretty impressive.  In both situations, so many things have to come together perfectly in order for even one TD, one HR, to even HAPPEN.  When Kobe scores more than 40 a night, you just think, “Well, that just meant he had the ball more.”

I’ve heard so many people, sports fans and not, talk about how the NBA regular season is boring and they only watch the post-season. Maybe this is just the inherent problem with basketball, and it’s not fixable. Adding more flash, more dunks, more something MIGHT make the game more enjoyable to watch, but it might get old quick. Who knows? Maybe basketball will never get back its mojo because it didn’t have the best game to begin with.

Sincerely, Junk Food Guy