I laughed out loud when I saw that. How the mighty have fallen.
In any case, only two teams in the West have ginormous fanbase (Lakers and Warriors) as evidenced by viewership stats. Clicks drive revenue for the media and they had to highlight those two teams to stay afloat. This is the sad reality.
The viewership stats are a reflection of the teams and narratives they push. Young people are impressionable. When they never show highlights of the KINGS or other young, upcoming and more exciting teams in favor of the ones they deem as “brands” — what else should be expected?
Start covering all teams equally, or at least those that are winning in a given season, then see what happens.
12 years ago most of the general NBA fanbase didn’t know or care about the Warriors.
Winning changes everything, of course. But so does exposure and coverage. The LAL are a great example of this, as they’ve largely been irrelevant for the past 10 years. They have two playoff appearances over that time.
But since the coverage of that franchise has never stopped — the viewership is still there. The same could be done for other franchises but they refuse to do it. Even the NY Knicks didn’t get half of the same attention the past decade. So it’s not just about market size.
It’s one thing for ESPCNN to offer biased and lopsided coverage, but what’s the excuse for NBATV? They need to be covering ALL their teams. Or at the very least the relevant teams in a given season.
Regardless, circling back to the original point, the fact that the 9th seed is being highlighted and applauded is downright laughable.