Are the Cavs in danger of becoming irrelevant in this town?

[udilicious42584]

Very interesting conversation going on here. Glad to see all the different perspectives. I think MYoung mentioned a lot of things I wanted to say in the original post, but I failed to do so.

Browns, win or lose, good or bad get coverage. Take 92.3 for example... That is literally a 24/7 Browns channel. Other than Jeff Phelps, I don't think there is one other personality on that station that is qualified or cares to talk Cavs. The only coverage the Cavs get are FSO broadcasts, and then WKNR overtime will have Michael Reghi just destroy the team for an hour or two postgame. Even the Indians who I follow least I feel more in tune with between the Winter Meeting updates and our recent FA acquisition.

Yes, the attendance at the Q is still pretty decent, but I feel it's different this year. For the last two seasons people went to really support the team and show that with LeBron not here, we would still show up. Having been to the Q this year it's because tickets on flash seats are dirt cheap and I wanted something to do before going to the casino. You can tell half the people in the crowd are getting free tickets from work, people are moving from way up in the nose-bleed down to the good seats. It's a free for all. It's just people looking for an event in town. You hardly see jerseys, or cavs shirts in the crowd. It's a fashion show in the lower bowl for the most part. What I'm trying to say is that even the buzz in the Q isn't the same.

Kovanovich made excellent points as well. There was that sympathy period for Dan Gilbert and Chris Grant. They could get away with it because the other Cleveland teams sucked, and the Cavs were the most recently successful who had just lost LeBron. However, Haslam taking over, the Browns looking sharp, the Indians making moves, can affect the Cavs rebuild plan. I don't think Gilbert wants to look like the last guy to the party, and I don't think he wants his team to be furthest away from being watchable when he probably thought the Cavs would be back to relevancy before the Browns or Indians sniffed any success.

It's a dangerous game when you build through the draft only and hope the recipe is just right. I can only trust the ownership and management, it's the only option. But I'm ready to see some progress at this point. Let's see with Kyrie back tonight if the Cavs can get some sort of spunk back.

 

[bushwick_bill]

I'm a little confused... We haven't played the Knicks yet this season...

He must be getting MSG confused with the Barclay's because the Nets crowd was doing this in Brooklyn. It was not an awesome game since the Cavs got blown out only cool thing about it were my seats.

 

[Jack Brickman]

NBA teams in small markets always become irrelevant when they're bad. When you play 41 home games a year, it's harder to drum up support long-term than it is for football, where you play a whopping 8 regular season games at home each season. It's just much, much easier to sell out games when you play so small a number than it is when you play so large a number. Couple that with the fact that, on the whole, football is a more popular sport (and the Browns have a more prominent history in Cleveland), and it's easy to see why the Browns can sell out when terrible but the Cavs (and Indians) struggle.

Likewise, it's easier to sell out basketball games when you're in a large market (like LA or NY) where there are so many more casual fans to sell tickets to than it is in a small market, particularly when your team is good. Of course, being in a large market alone isn't enough to sell out games. Just ask the Clippers. They weren't selling out too many games until Chris Paul came to town. Bad teams lose support because most fans are at least somewhat fair-weather in nature.

Here's the thing, though...as soon as the Cavs start making the playoffs again, people will start going back to games. Cleveland is a sports town. The people there love their teams, and while they may support them less when they suck, they won't just forget about them. Winning brings in the casual fans, and the casual fans are the ones who sell out regular season basketball games. All it takes is one winning season to restore hope to a city that doesn't see too many of them.

 

[theSTEREO.]

This conversation gets recycled every couple of years or so. The answer has always been generally the same.

Yes, the Browns dominate this town. But they always have. And the Cavs have always been here and have been more profitable than not, especially in recent years. Too many of you are looking at this the wrong way. The Cavs are a third wheel. But they have ALWAYS been the third wheel. Not sure why anyone sees that as a shock or as something new.

The real difference to me is that they are a much stronger third wheel than they have ever been. The Lebron era put this team in the consciousness of the city like it never was before. Before LBJ, the teams attendance was so bad the threat of moving was tangible. In terms of wins, this team isn't that much better, but people understand basketball around here better now and support the team during the lows much more than they used to.

And I take issue with the fact that the crowds have been bad this year. Not sure what games you have been at, but the crowd has seemed pretty solid for a losing team in my opinion. I have a great time at games and others sure seem to too.

For a third wheel in this city, the fact that we are averaging higher attenance than the Nuggets, Nets, Wolves, Griz and other winning teams, less than ~1k per game than teams like the Thunder, Warriors, even the Celtics, and heck even averaging more than a lot of the Mark Price era seasons is pretty remarkable if you ask me.

People complained all year long about how the Tribe couldn't get anyone to show up while winning, while cities like Detroit were selling out. Yet the Cavs aren't much behind the Pistons in terms of development, but we are smoking them in attendance and fan support.

The Cavs are and will continue to be a third wheel, even when we are winning, but the thought that the city can't support all three sports and that the Cavs are on the verge if irrelevance is and old notion and laughable IMO

 

[lolecules]

It can either go extremely well, extremely poorly, or somewhere in between.

Uh, well, I think that definitely covers most of the potential outcomes, yes...

 

[Jon]

I'm not sure we should be judging fan interest based on Cleveland's terrible sports radio ... 15,000+ fans are heading down to the Q for every game, but clearly few of them have any interest in flooding the WKNR listener lines. Maybe they have jobs? Go to school? Don't like listening to crap on the radio?

I don't think the Cavalier's fan base is as large as the Brown's let alone the Indian's but it's still pretty significant just based on attendance and viewing numbers alone.

 

[czvo]

So, does the context change the fact he missed games? All that matters is he has missed a lot of games for 3 straight years. Not sure how anyone can look at this and say he isn't injury prone.

Context matters in everything. What's the point of results if we're not going to figure out how we got there?

 

[Randolphkeys]

Mark Reynolds is moose poo.

 

[Otsego Mar]

Mark Reynolds is moose poo.

If we're talking moose poo as a natural fertilizer, then that's a good thing. Context does matter.

 

[Jack Brickman]

I'm not sure we should be judging fan interest based on Cleveland's terrible sports radio ... 15,000+ fans are heading down to the Q for every game, but clearly few of them have any interest in flooding the WKNR listener lines. Maybe they have jobs? Go to school? Don't like listening to crap on the radio?

I don't think the Cavalier's fan base is as large as the Brown's let alone the Indian's but it's still pretty significant just based on attendance and viewing numbers alone.

You also have to consider that it's easy to go to football games. They're mostly on Sunday, usually in the early afternoon for Cleveland. Most people are off work on Saturday and Sunday, so it's very easy to have season tickets for a football team.

Basketball can be much trickier. Many of the games are on weeknights, and unless you actually live in downtown Cleveland, going to evening games when you have to wake up at six or seven AM the next morning can be more of a hassle than it's worth, particularly if the team isn't very good. That's why you'll typically see open seats during Cavs weeknight games, but almost never on Friday or Saturday night games, even right now when the team sucks. Going to 41 NBA games a year is just borderline impossible if you have a job (which you probably do if you're a season ticket holder) and don't live within walking distance of the stadium (and even then a January game between Cleveland and Charlotte might not get you off the couch).

I think all people really need to look at is how damn popular the Cavs were when they were good just a few short years ago. I still lived in Ohio then, and I couldn't go to a single bar in Bowling Green (where I went to college) without seeing a couple of Cavs jerseys or shirts on game nights. I went to the lone Bobcats/Cavs game in Charlotte last year, and there were at least ten people sitting within twenty feet of me (which was about fifteen rows from the court on the lower level) wearing Cavs gear. The young girl in front of me had a Varejao jersey on. The old black guy sitting next to me had a Cavs jacket on.

This team has a ton of support, even when they suck. You just don't necessarily see that in ticket sales, because not all of us live in Cleveland and can go to games. As I said above, the casual fans are the ones who sell out games, and they do that when the team is good.

 

[Dr. Gymbo]

Very interesting conversation going on here. Glad to see all the different perspectives. I think MYoung mentioned a lot of things I wanted to say in the original post, but I failed to do so.

Browns, win or lose, good or bad get coverage. Take 92.3 for example... That is literally a 24/7 Browns channel. Other than Jeff Phelps, I don't think there is one other personality on that station that is qualified or cares to talk Cavs. The only coverage the Cavs get are FSO broadcasts, and then WKNR overtime will have Michael Reghi just destroy the team for an hour or two postgame. Even the Indians who I follow least I feel more in tune with between the Winter Meeting updates and our recent FA acquisition.

I agree with this 1000%. Phelps is great what he does. Joe Lull isn't bad either.

But when you get someone like Chuck Booms on there pretending he knows anything about basketball strategy, growth of players, trade philosophies, or basketball in general, I feel dumber just listening to him.

 

[gregdawg]

I agree with this 1000%. Phelps is great what he does. Joe Lull isn't bad either.

But when you get someone like Chuck Booms on there pretending he knows anything about basketball strategy, growth of players, trade philosophies, or basketball in general, I feel dumber just listening to him.

yeah, 92.3 is essentially the Browns station. So annoying. I'm not a football guy, so it's frustrating when I tune into a "Cleveland Sports station" and all I here is Browns talk. Of all the Cleveland teams, the Cavs have been the most successful in recent years, and are viewed as the best-run franchise with the brightest future, yet none of those radio tards talk about the Cavs (with the exception of Phelps). Instead they spend hours babbling about a crappy team that has been crappy for 15 years. The cavs could be in the playoffs and those guys would still find a way to steer the conversation towards football.

...but this is the world we live in...we're not just in a football city, we're in a football country. NFL will always be king. A 3-hour ordeal to watch only 12 minutes of actual on-field action. I'll never get the appeal.