NBA invades Dallas; The Olympics are underway.

This weekend was the NBA All-Star game. Maybe you missed it. I’ve never been so uninterested in the all-star game than this year.

It all began Friday with the celebrity game was boring in itself. Then Saturday it was the rookie/sophomore game followed by the skills challenge and dunk contest. The dunk contest is the most popular event, the one everyone looks forward to—NBA fan or not. It would have helped to see North Central grad and IU star Eric Gordon in the competition. And with the events taking place in Jerry Jones’ billion dollar house aka Cowboys Stadium, the NBA held center stage and had a chance to get their name out.

David Stern announced this week that the NBA has lost well over $400 million this past year. Teams alone are losing well over $20 million each. The NBA is completely struggling right now with only the top 10 players holding this league up. It’s Kobe, LeBron, Dwight, Shaq keeping the infrastructure in place. Teams like the Pacers put a boring product on the court, a product that can’t fill more seats than their successful WNBA counterpart—the Fever.

The NBA did have a successful weekend, but management must make some changes. They are completely dominated by the NFL in regards to popularity, ratings and merchandise sales.
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Also this weekend, was the start of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. Beijing completely dominated opening ceremonies and it will never be outdone. Before the first events began, I had very little interests in the events. However having the channel on a couple hours this week, I really got into it.

Unfortunately there was the whole ice luge incident that cost the 21 year-old his life, the first death in the winter Olympics in over 40 years. But the event itself is thrilling. And who knew there was an event involving skiing and shooting at targets? Between the ice luge, ski jumps, and other thrilling events, I think I’ll be watching a little more of it. It doesn’t hurt that legends Al Michaels and Bob Costas lead the NBC coverage. The winter Olympics is really more about the storylines than the competitions. The storylines (usually used on women) attract attention to the events and that’s just what NBC wants. It’s not quite the summer Olympics—full of swimming, track, and basketball but it can certainly keep my attention now that 22 straight weeks of NFL is over. There is always college basketball…(or not in Bloomington)