The NFL is in mild turmoil with primetime ratings down even more from a year ago, and the NBA is seeing its best ratings since Michael Jordan’s last game as a Bull. So, which sport should you spend your time following? This is an “Arguing with Myself” where Michael Chapman argues which sport is more entertaining. Mike will be arguing for football and Chap for basketball.
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Mike: I understand that NFL football is in the midst of some turmoil with the whole anthem controversy combined with head injury issues, but I still maintain that the game itself is more entertaining than basketball is.
Chap: If you’re entertained by grown men knocking heads in gladiator-esque coliseums, effectively cutting years and quality off of each other’s lives for three-and-a-half hours every week only for every other game to end in a tie, I suppose you’re right.
Mike: Listen, this debate is strictly about which sport is more entertaining, so stay in your lane.
Chap: As long as we move forward with the understood moral principle that you are an objectively worse person for enjoying football, I’m fine with that.
Mike: No.
Chap: …
Mike: Fine.
Chap: Good.
Mike: Back to my actual point, football is just more entertaining. Here’s the big thing: in football, every play matters. Think about it, how often is a layup halfway through the first quarter going to have any effect on who wins the game? In football, every play has immeasurable value from start to finish. Even a four-yard run affects down and distance, and any given play could be 25% of the points either team scores easily. You can look back at a pick-six in the second quarter as a play where momentum changed and someone either pulled away or got back in the game. People understand that, and it keeps them on the edge of their seat the whole game instead of just the last five minutes if the game is even close.
Chap: Listen, man, I get what you’re saying, but you’re looking at a snapshot reality. In the NFL, you’re getting about 127 six-ish second plays over the course of 180 minutes, leaving you “on the edge of your seat” about 7% of the time, and that’s if the game is competitive late. In basketball on the other hand, real playing time comes out to about 33% of game completion time any way you look at it (48 of 150 minutes in the NBA, 40 of 120 in college, etc.), so you don’t have those crazy score-then-commercials-then-kickoff-then-commercials-then-end-of-quarter-then-commercials sequences that drive football fans crazy. You’re being fed new content constantly with breaks just long enough to talk to people and process what you’re consuming.
Mike: OK, but what’s the actual quality level of that entertainment? What you’re saying is like comparing 5 surface level “how are you?” interactions to one of those 2 a.m. raw talks you have in the car with your best friend. Yes, the first is technically human contact, but they’re not the same and no one who has experienced the latter would try to argue that they are. You just can’t emulate the dramatic build-up or the satisfaction you get when a play goes your way, or even the heartbreak when it doesn’t.
Chap: Not sure I’m following. Just try to tell me that Cavs fans didn’t experience that satisfaction after the chasedown block, or that Detroit fans didn’t go through that heartbreak when Larry Bird stole that pass from Isiah Thomas in the ‘87 ECF to steal the game and cost them a potential title.
Mike: That’s fair to an extent, but you have to understand that that level of excitement is routine in football. About half of NFL games are won by one score, and every game has a legitimate chance to determine whether or not a team makes the playoffs with the short 16-game season. An NBA game is decided by one score, what, 10% of the time? If that? Plus a single game almost never determines if you make the playoffs.
Chap: See, you’re doing the thing again…
Mike: What thing?
Chap: That thing you keep doing where you dubiously use the NBA’s high quantity as evidence against its quality.
Mike: Oh c’mon, you can’t sit here and tell me that the high scoring doesn’t take something away from each point? Or that the long season doesn’t take away from each game?
Chap: No, it actually only adds convenience. OK, what are you going to be doing this Sunday afternoon Mike?
Mike: I’ll be making every reasonable effort to watch the Titans game, of course.
Chap: And if you don’t get to watch it?
Mike: I’ll be a minimum of mildly perturbed at best.
Chap: OK. And do you know what I’ll be doing, say, January 9th, to throw out a date?
Mike: Watching the Celtics game?
Chap: Maybe. Maybe not. I’ll be doing precisely whatever the heck I want to be doing January 9th. Could I watch what shapes up to be a fun Pacers-Celtics game? Absolutely. Could I go to a movie with a group of friends who spontaneously decide to go? You bet I could. The thing about it is flexibility and convenience. If I happen to miss that game, I can watch the Heat game the next day. Or the Raptors game the next week. And no matter what, I won’t miss out on whatever else is going on and I’ll have an equal amount of fun watching whichever one of those C’s games I can.
Mike: See, the simple fact that you are willing to miss any of those games proves my point that they’re expendable! How do you not see this? Every game of football that’s played is important, and you simply can’t say that about basketball.
Chap: Any “importance” behind a given football game is just manufactured. Ultimately, you’re being entertained for three hours, but it’s on their time, you usually have to make some kind of sacrifice to watch a given game, and you max out at 20 a year even if your team makes the Super Bowl. With basketball, there are games practically every night during the season, so you watch on your terms, and there are 82 opportunities to watch even for the very worst teams in the league.
Mike: Well at least in the NFL you don’t know before the season starts who’s going to win the title…
Chap: Did you really just pull the Warriors card on me? You do realize that the most entertaining time in the history of American sports is when Michael Jordan won a title six straight years that he was playing in basketball shape, right? And that the most compelling narratives in any form have a really strong, often unbeatable villain, right?
Mike: Yeah, I know. I just got flustered. Sorry.
Chap: As long as you know.
Mike: OK, but here’s my final point: remember that passage in 2 Thessalonians 1 about the faith of the church in Thessalonica?
Chap: Wait, we’re not allowed to pull Scripture into this, are we? *frantically texts editor to see what the rules are for such things in Arguing with Myself*
Mike: Basically, Paul tells the Thessalonians that their faith is so great that it actually proves the righteousness of God. So, using that logic, since football is the most watched sport in the U.S., doesn’t that make it the greatest?
Chap: Wait, did you just compare football to God? Also, nothing about that comparison makes any sense whatsoever.
Mike: Disagree.
Chap: Whatever, man.
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Drawing by Tamara Friesen
