The NBA desperately needs its 90s “Inside Stuff.”

The “Association” is in trouble if it can’t rediscover its mid 90s era hustle and immediacy.

While you might find the 2016–2017 NBA regular season and playoffs to be highly entertaining, they actually aren’t at all. Local NBA ratings dropped 14 percent from 2015–2016, and 15 regional sports networks experienced double-digit decreases. This isn’t a new phenomenon, as in 2003, ESPN noted that the NBA was in the “rust age.” The NBA attributes it’s low ratings and lack of appeal to “DVRs and cord-cutting,” as well as a “bombastic presidential election cycle” and “a historic World Series.” Instead of all of that, I’ll attribute it to the league not being as motivated as a marketer as it was to succeed after Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, and Michael Jordan retired. Moreover, the NBA has lazily sliding away from its refreshing 1994 and 1995 post-Jordan essence. Even more, the league is hamstrung by, at-present, being deep in the throes of discovering a new recipe for its one-time impacting “inside stuff.” Without displaying the hustle, excitement, and impact of that era, a dynamic league could meet a devastating fate.

Between November 7, 1991 and October 6, 1993, Earvin “Magic” Johnson, Larry Bird, and Michael Jordan — aka the triumvirate that controlled the global basketball zeitgeist and “saved the National Basketball Association” — all retired. Them leaving the game left the NBA with a massive hole in its public relations campaign. Magic’s Los Angeles Lakers and Bird’s Boston Celtics accounted for eight of the 10 NBA championship winners of the decade of the 80s, and the Chicago Bulls’ Michael Jordan was the NBA’s pop cultural supernova to take the league into the 1990s. In studying how the NBA rebranded itself as a league of many stars and not just a trickle-down gang of three, there’s an intriguing juxtaposition to how the modern league can’t quite figure out a third best way to brand itself, thus leading to its ratings and interest decline.

THE NBA (BRIEFLY) EMBRACES THE AGE OF PARITY

In the years 1994 and 1995, the following occurred in the NBA:

• The Miami Heat, Charlotte Hornets, and Orlando Magic, then five-year old expansion franchises, all make the NBA playoffs, with then third-year players Shaquille O’Neal and Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway leading the Magic to the 1995 NBA Finals.
• In the 1994 NBA Playoffs, the eighth seeded Denver Nuggets upset the first-seeded Seattle Supersonics.
• The Indiana Pacers and New York Knicks become dominant Eastern Conference franchises
• The Western Conference becomes a combustible collection of fast-breaking franchises as the Houston Rockets, Phoenix Suns, Utah Jazz, San Antonio Spurs and the aforementioned Sonics and Nuggets all become significant franchises. The Rockets eventually win the 1994 and 1995 NBA Championship.
• Jason Kidd, Grant Hill, and Kevin Garnett, plus one-time University of Michigan “Fab Five” players Juwan Howard and Jalen Rose are all drafted into the NBA. Add in 1991 gifting Larry Johnson and Dikembe Mutombo, 1992’s windfall of Shaquille O’Neal, Christian Laettner, and Alonzo Mourning, plus 1993’s additions of Chris Webber and Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway, and the NBA — in the wake of Magic, Larry, and Michael’s retirements — had wholly restocked their shelf of stars.

In total, adding in the Houston Rockets trio of Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler, and Kenny Smith, the Phoenix Suns with Charles Barkley and Kevin Johnson, the Utah Jazz’s iconic tandem of Karl Malone and John Stockton, David Robinson as “The Admiral” at the helm of the San Antonio Spurs, plus the Seattle Supersonics with Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp, the New York Knicks with Patrick Ewing, the Indiana Pacers with Reggie Miller and Denver Nuggets pairing Dikembe Mutombo with point guard Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, and yes, the Chicago Bulls sans Michael Jordan with Scottie Pippen bravely holding down the fort. In full, there’s literally 25 stars on half the teams in the league over two years doing much of the same work carried out by three players on three teams over 13 years. That’s a radical shift.

THE MAGIC OF NBC AND AHMAD RASHAD

In the 1970s, NBA games were also-ran network coverage. CBS had the NBA’s network TV deal from 1973–1990, and Wikipedia notes that, “from 1975 to 1979, CBS aired all NBA Finals games live (usually during the afternoon); live NBA Finals game coverage on the network resumed in 1982. During this era, CBS aired weeknight playoff games from earlier rounds on tape delay at 11:30 p.m. Eastern Time (airing games live when the game site was in the Pacific Time Zone). CBS continued this practice until at least the mid-1980s.”

NBC paid 219% more than CBS ($47 million to $150 million a year) to broadcast the NBA from 1990–1994. From 1994–1998, that number jumped 51% from $150 million to $226 million. As well, there was a 234% increase in the number of games shown by NBC over CBS, from 16 to 54. As well, the increase in ratings of 45% from CBS to NBC was astounding as well. In NBC quadrupling down on the league and the league itself expanding its superstar potential, it was a truly incredible time.

Likely most important to NBC’s coverage of the NBA though was the influence of someone who never dribbled a ball or sank a free throw in a game: broadcaster Ahmad Rashad.

Ahmad Rashad had an All-Pro 11-year National Football League career which translated into the handsome now ex-athlete having a career with NBC as a NFL pregame analyst and sideline reporter. Adding onto his pop cultural acclaim was his marriage to Phylicia Allen-Rashad, aka “Claire Huxtable,” the on-screen wife of Bill “Heathcliff Huxtable” Cosby on NBC’s wildly successful sitcom “The Cosby Show.” In so many ways, that pretty much assured Ahmad Rashad a place of exalted African-American royalty.

Couple Rashad’s black royalty with a league that had well over 70% African-American players being shown on a network that, in airing “The Cosby Show,” “A Different World,” and“The Fresh Prince of Bel Air,” was wholly divested in African-Americans as a pop-resonant demographic, and it was already a recipe for immense success. Add in Rashad’s amazing on-screen chemistry with black NBA stars Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson, and NBC was reaching another level. Give Rashad a half-hour of time on children’s daytime TV, special pre-game show interviews and all access as a sideline reporter, with yes, this league where 96% of the stars named earlier are black, and it’s a recipe for exorbitant success.

YOU WANT THE INSIDE STUFF

Wikipedia states the following about “NBA Inside Stuff,” a show that, intriguingly enough, is hosted by a breakout star of this NBA era, Grant Hill.

NBA Inside Stuff is a television program airing on NBA TV and previously aired on NBC for many years, then on ABC, featuring behind the scenes activities of NBA players. The program also includes features on fitness and fundamentals of basketball. NBA Inside Stuff served as a sort of recap and analysis show reviewing the week’s previous games in the NBA, complete with top plays and special moments. The hosts would also interview top NBA players outside of game situations, often discussing issues relevant to them.

As a devout watcher of “NBA Inside Stuff,” I’m here to tell you what *actually* happened:

For 30 minutes, Ahmad Rashad kinda hung around and either goofed off or had interviews with the again, aforementioned 25 NBA legends-to-be, all pretty much attempting in various ways to replicate the on-and-off screen relationship that Ahmad Rashad had with Michael Jordan. Couple this with the fact that NBC savvily tacked it onto the back of its “TNBC” (Teen NBC) (as educational programming, no less) lineup and just prior to its Saturday afternoon NBA slate — plus given that 2015 Nielsen data shows that 43% of the NBA’s target fanbase is under the age of 35 — it was a perfect (no not Rashad’s “NBA Inside Stuff” co-host Hannah) storm.

From “Jam Session” highlighting dunks to slow-mo features highlighting offensive strategies to player profiles of young stars and established veterans alike, “Inside Stuff” was amazing. In the 1980s, NBA Entertainment became an NFL Films-style clearinghouse for all things amazing and NBA on videotape. Similar to the NFL Network and HBO’s Hard Knocks that’s helped guide the juggernaut that is pro football in the modern age, Inside Stuff took what usually required a year of editing and replicated it on a weekly basis. For me at the age of 16 and 17, it pretty much cemented my move from loving baseball and football to being a devout and diehard NBA fanatic. “NBA Inside Stuff” absolutely made the NBA “FAN-TASTIC.”

WHERE THE WHEELS FELL OFF THE NBA

Had Michael Jordan not come back to the National Basketball Association in 1995, it’s an easy-to-argue point that the league would be far better equipped to handle a situation wherein there’s 30 teams that, if you note the league’s marketing, all have stars. Some of these stars are any of the 101 foreign-born players from 37 countries. Furthermore, every NBA game is available via ABC, ESPN, TBS, TNT, cable content sharing service NBA League Pass andthe league’s own content sharing platform, NBA TV. Ultimately, because ONE Michael Jordan in 1995 proved to be a better player in all facets of both basketball and marketing the game of basketball than Shaquille O’Neal, Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway, Jason Kidd, Grant Hill, Kevin Garnett, Juwan Howard, Jalen Rose, Larry Johnson, Dikembe Mutombo, Christian Laettner, Alonzo Mourning, Chris Webber, Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler, Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley, Kevin Johnson, Karl Malone, John Stockton, David Robinson, Gary Payton, Shawn Kemp, Patrick Ewing, Reggie Miller, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, and yes, the Chicago Bulls’ Scottie Pippen, the NBA moved back to a “single-player” system, and in eschewing the “this league is FAN-TASTIC” model has likely done itself a disservice in the modern era.

Here’s an undeniable fact. The 1995-1996 Chicago Bulls’ Game 6 win in the 1996 NBA Finals over the Seattle Supersonics was a 26% ratings increase over the 1994–1995 Houston Rockets defeating the Orlando Magic. As well, the 1995–1996 Bulls, in Michael Jordan’s full first year after his March 1995 return to the NBA, won 53% more games than in the prior year, finishing the season at an impressive 72–10 record. As well, Michael Jordan averaged 43% more points per game in 1996 than Scottie Pippen did in 1995 as the team’s scoring leader (21.4 to 30.7).

Jordan’s return arguably turned an entire league that was being pushed and slowly starting to excel as a compelling cohesive unit with a massive marketing push as an entire second fiddle to Michael Jordan. Intriguing to note here are the ratings of the All-Star Game, which between 1994 and 1995, experienced a modest 15% ratings increase. While not the boffo numbers of the Jordan age, it does speak to the notion that the league’s investment in pushing 25 players and 16 teams as opposed to three players on three teams as being significant was slowly working.

However, it wasn’t working fast enough. In 1998, the NBA’s owners and the NBA’s players association could not achieve a deal regarding revenue sharing between the league’s owners and its players. Here’s why.

The NBA was league built on the back of three stars in three major market cities, and thus became a league that was built on the back of three robust economies and three lucrative franchises. Suddenly, the league decided to drastically change course and be built on the backs of 25 stars in 15 minor-to-major markets. This shifted the league to being built on a mix of firm and shaky economic markets and many not-so-lucrative franchises. Thus, while investment into the league was high, commercial fan interest was not able to defray the costs of players being introduced into this bold new marketplace, plus teams needing to keep fans in seats. Therefore, Wikipedia noting that “[b]y the 1997–98 season, 57 percent of basketball-related income was used to pay players, while the previous deal called for a 48 percent split,” and that “according to the NBA, 15 of the 29 teams posted losses that season,” it all makes sense.

THE NBA, STARTING ALL OVER AGAIN

It’s been 20 years since the NBA lockout shortened that NBA season to 50 games. In that time, the NBA’s regular season TV and All-Star Game ratings are down 60%, NBA Finals ratings are down 30%, and NBA attendance is dropping. Even further, the NBA has decided to cease its long-held policy against uniforms bearing corporate-sponsored advertising, and yes, the Boston Celtics jersey once worn by Larry Bird in the NBA’s halcyon era will feature a General Electric patch next season.

A league once on the brink of extravagant levels of success is now using a different marketing strategy that blends the best of the 80s with a heaping helping of the 90s that is exciting, yet imperfect.

Similar to the 1980s, 2017’s NBA has two main stars, LeBron James and Stephen Curry. Like Magic vs. Bird, James’ Cleveland Cavaliers and Curry’s Golden State Warriors are at what appears to be the start of numerous NBA Finals encounters. Not unlike Larry Bird being seconded by power forward Kevin McHale, Curry’s scoring partner is one-time Oklahoma City Thunder power forward Kevin Durant. As well, in a manner parallel to the “Showtime” Lakers, LeBron James plays Magic while surrounded by a team of fast-breaking, run and gun slashers and scorers.

However, as well, there’s a whole rest of a league that includes gifted players being pushed as not stars, but oftentimes superstars, on other teams. Similar to the 1990s 25/15 model, there’s Russell Westbrook, Kawhi Leonard, DeMar DeRozan, John Wall, James Harden, Isaiah Thomas, Blake Griffin, DeMarcus Cousins, Chris Paul, Paul Millsap, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Paul George, Jimmy Butler, Kristaps Porzingis, Klay Thompson, Gordon Hayward, Damian Lillard, Danilo Gallinari, Ben Simmons and Karl Anthony-Towns starring in a manner presented as most epic for half the league.

However, the accouterments, namely “The Inside Stuff” in its 90s iteration engaging an excitable NBA fanbase being hyper-marketed to like never before, and dynamic basketball being played on the court by 25 (largely) brand new superstars, is not quite as present. Yes, there’s 1994 and 1995 NBA players Reggie Miller, Chris Webber, Grant Hill, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal there on TBS and TNT, and Jalen Rose on ABC and ESPN. And yes, the late Craig Sager was awfully entertaining, too. But that’s NOTHING as compared to NBC and the NBA joining forces to ensure that the pop culture explosion that was the idea that two dozen black basketball giants at the height of their appeal, plus Bill Cosby, Lisa Bonet, Will Smith and Ahmad Rashad once shared a single network home.

…AND NOTHING WAS THE SAME

The NBA likely can’t solve itself without doubling down on corporate sponsorship to allow for the immense costs of rebranding itself in full as a dynamic socio-cultural monstrosity that touches all corners of the globe at all times, in all ways. One can only imagine what madness would’ve ensued (and how much less it would cost given potential net profits banked over the past 20 years) if a) Jordan did not return in 1995 and b) if the 1998 lockout had not occurred. Foremost, the league had already embraced a 30-team all-in branding strategy and featuring far more parity and star-making potential than ever before. This would’ve been likely put the NBA further along as an organization, and in the face of say, the 2001 and 2007 (especially, note that 2006’s #1 pick was Italian Andrea Bargnani, 2007’s draft featured 13 international selections) American economic recessions to see a higher and more immediate return of investment on global, digital, and social media driven growth and sustainability strategies.

The NBA of the post-Jordan retirement age of 1994 and 1995 was phenomenal. It was funky, refreshing, hip, young, invigorating, and inherently eye-catching in ways and dimensions that the Magic, Larry, and Michael league just couldn’t be. It provided, if even for the briefest of seconds, a glimpse of what the league now radically represents, yet sadly, what it’s never quite likely to ever be again.

As far as what lies beyond? That’s anyone’s best guess. But what came before, if even for a brief time, was an amazing thing that we’ll likely never ever see again.