#SeeRed Nation is dwindling. #FireGarPax Nation, on the other hand, is amassing soldiers like never before. As the Bulls sputter through another mediocre season (27-29, currently 7th in the East) the once-proud Chicago fanbase is quickly losing interest. The Madhouse on Madison is still rocking for the Blackhawks, but the United Center's nickname is laughably inaccurate when the Bulls hold court. The atmosphere mirrors a smattering of disinterested, still-hungover college kids sitting through a boring lecture on Monday morning. Not only that, fans at home are either turning off their TVs or changing the channel as the Bulls' ratings are flirting with a ten-year low.
Unfortunately for those Bulls fans desperate for change, crowd ambiance and TV ratings don't tell the whole story. Team owner Jerry Reinsdorf can easily weave a different one: the Bulls remain one of the most valuable NBA franchises with the best home attendance numbers and high merchandise sales. So what will it take for Reinsdorf to actually pay attention to the growing anger among his organization's enormous fanbase? More over, what will it take for the owner to finally do something about it?
Let's look at this dilemma from both sides.
That 2.95 average rating last season has dipped to 2.12 this season. The ratings are in a steady free fall since fans tuned in regularly during the '14-15 season that saw a resurgent Rose and the Bulls push LeBron James and the Cavaliers to six games in the conference semifinals. Now that seems like more of a distant memory than Jordan's final shot over Bryon Russell in Salt Lake City.
So, what have we established? Chicago is still near the top of the league in merchandise sales, but people are starting to tune out of the games. Tickets are still selling out, but the butts aren't filling the seats.
Speaking of filling the seats, there's a large protest brewing that aims to infiltrate the United Center with angry fans wearing "Fire GarPax" t-shirts. Mark your calendars for the Bulls' nationally televised home game against the Clippers on March 4th. The question is, will Reinsdorf even notice? If he notices, will he care?
I posed that question to K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune on Monday's episode of The 312 Podcast. His answer probably isn't what Bulls fans want to hear...
The Good
The Michael Jordan Era Bulls took the NBA's popularity to a whole new level, both nationally and globally. Through most of the late 1980s and '90s, new basketball fans without a hometown team (or a bad one) adopted the Bulls simply because Jordan was the best show to see. When the dynasty broke up in 1998, most fans stayed and suffered through a long and painful rebuilding process. Count yours truly among them. I stayed up late on school nights to watch Elton Brand, Ron Artest, Jamal Crawford, Tyson Chandler, Eddie Curry, Ben Gordon and their sidekicks get pummeled by just about every team in the league. Why? Because I was hooked on the Bulls, regardless of the product. The glory days had a firm grip on the neurons in my brain that should've told me to cut bait and run from such a mess. That's the same reason these 2016-17 Bulls are still pulling in great numbers across the board. Bulls fans have a uniquely indestructible form of loyalty because of the dynasty. We're all eagerly watching and waiting for our team to get back to the NBA mountaintop, because we know how great it feels to be there. The arrival of hometown hero Derrick Rose finally pulled the franchise out of the rebuilding dog days, and his MVP season (at just 22 years old) had fans believing more banners were coming. But bad things happened, and the Bulls haven't gone any further than the second round since 2011. Nonetheless, brainwashed fans continue to buy tickets and merchandise despite the poor product on the floor this season.Shut Up & Take My Money
The Bulls lead the league in home attendance this season. On average, 21,600 fans pour into the United Center for every home game. That's actually an attendance percentage of 103.3%, given the seated capacity of 20,917. But Bulls fans are so desperate to see their beloved team that tens of thousands more buy standing room tickets over the course of the season. In fact, Reinsdorf's team has led the league in attendance every year since 2010. From 2005-10 Chicago ranked second every year behind Detroit, except in '07 when they ranked first. Starting to get the idea about the unbending loyalty? Not only are fans paying big bucks to see the Bulls play at the Madhouse, they're spending lots more on jerseys and other merchandise. Forbes released an article last month ranking the jersey and overall merchandise sales of NBA players and franchises. Dwyane Wade's Chicago homecoming sparked a huge wave of purchases, as his #3 Bulls jersey ranked 6th among all players from October-December in 2016. Rising star Jimmy Butler's #21 is also a hot item, coming in 9th overall in that same time span. In total sales for team merchandise, the Bulls came in 4th, trailing only the Lakers, Cavaliers and Warriors. That would be the two most recent NBA champions and one of just two teams (LA and New York) with a larger market than Chicago. Perhaps the offseason departures of franchise staples Rose and Joakim Noah (whose jerseys both hang in my closet) prompted thousands of Bulls fans to rush out and update their wardrobes with Wades and Butlers. Still, that minor uptick wouldn't account for the entirety of the 4th place finish in overall merchandise sales across the league. On the big picture scale, that's all about the blind obsession of the greatest fans in all of sports. "The Bulls are underachieving this season? Who cares! Shut up and take my money!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnB1TgxgwEA As lifer Bulls fans, we are all Fry; eagerly hurling our money at an inferior product that's wildly overpriced. When will we ever learn to put our collective foot down and say no? Well, that might finally be happening.[USE ARROWS TO CONTINUE READING]
The Bad
The Bulls may be sustaining that league-leading attendance in technical terms, but the ambiance I mentioned earlier suggests otherwise. After all, those official attendance records account for tickets purchased, not seats filled. Take a look at this picture of the United Center from the Bulls game against the Toronto Raptors on Tuesday. https://twitter.com/CodyWesterlund/status/831673429598289921 As you can see, there are empty seats galore. And that picture is clearly taken with the game underway, as Taj Gibson is inbounding the ball after the Raptors scored. Bulls fans used to be one of the few groups in the NBA to fill the arena well before tipoff. One of the best parts about going to the Madhouse is experiencing arguably the best pregame introduction sequence in professional sports. Benny and the Bulls flag are spotlighted at center court. "Sirius" by Alan Parsons Project (more commonly know as the "Bulls Theme Song") crescendos as goosebumps take over your body and vivid memories of the dynasty come flooding back. "...Aaaaaaand now! The starting lineup for your Chicago Bulls!" ...My heart literally started beating faster as I typed those words while "Sirius" played in my headphones. I literally got goosebumps. It's inexplicable, but every diehard Bulls fan feels it. Maybe it's our sense memory taking us back to a glorified time whose heroes and triumphs don't feel that far gone. But with the increasingly silent crowds and no shows, has the novelty of reliving those glory days finally started to wear off?Where's The Remote?
It certainly appears that fans aren't tuning in for "Sirius" - or the actual games that follow -in their homes this season. Earlier this week, Danny Ecker of Chicago Business released a report on the Bulls' TV ratings in year two of the Fred Hoiberg Experiment. In short, they're bad. Here's an excerpt from Ecker's report:Through 30 broadcasts on CSN Chicago, the middling Bulls have posted an average TV rating of 2.12, or about 74,000 Chicago-area households per game. That's down 28 percent compared with the final season average and puts the team on pace to endure its lowest TV viewership average in nearly a decade on the network.
The dip also comes a year after the Bulls suffered a precipitous 36 percent ratings slide to their lowest average since the 2009-10 season. If viewership doesn't turn around this season, the team's average rating could fall below 2.0 for the first time since 2007-08, the year before the team drafted Derrick Rose. If you're the kind of person who absorbs information better through graphs, Ecker has you covered. Here are the Bulls' ratings on CSN since the 2007-08 season:
That 2.95 average rating last season has dipped to 2.12 this season. The ratings are in a steady free fall since fans tuned in regularly during the '14-15 season that saw a resurgent Rose and the Bulls push LeBron James and the Cavaliers to six games in the conference semifinals. Now that seems like more of a distant memory than Jordan's final shot over Bryon Russell in Salt Lake City.
So, what have we established? Chicago is still near the top of the league in merchandise sales, but people are starting to tune out of the games. Tickets are still selling out, but the butts aren't filling the seats.
Speaking of filling the seats, there's a large protest brewing that aims to infiltrate the United Center with angry fans wearing "Fire GarPax" t-shirts. Mark your calendars for the Bulls' nationally televised home game against the Clippers on March 4th. The question is, will Reinsdorf even notice? If he notices, will he care?
I posed that question to K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune on Monday's episode of The 312 Podcast. His answer probably isn't what Bulls fans want to hear...
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What Will It Take?
Most Bulls fans are pointing the finger of blame at general manager Gar Forman and vice president John Paxson, but we're not the ones with the power to fire them. Johnson reported last week that even if the Bulls miss the playoffs for the second straight season, Reinsdorf won't fire either of them. So I asked K.C. what it would take for GarPax to get the ax.There it is. Any time fans think GarPax have screwed up badly enough to warrant a pink slip, Reinsdorf's loyalty rears its ugly head. But will this fan protest inside his building bother Jerry and his son, team president Michael Reinsdorf, enough to finally make a change?"I can only go by previous example, and that was the Jerry Krause situation. The dynasty ended in '98 and he went to '03. He resigned under the auspices of health reasons, but it was certainly a forced resignation. So he gave Krause a five year plan and Jerry [Reinsdorf] reached his breaking point. [Reinsdorf] is in a different stage of his life now, he's 80 years old. He values these peoples' stewardship. He values loyalty. So I don't know if he has a certain time limit like he did on Krause back then." - K.C. Johnson
"It's clear that [Jerry] and his son Michael respect John and Gar, they respect the basketball operations staff...They think [GarPax] have a nice process in place in terms of how they approach the draft. They're comfortable with the free agency process. So in their minds, they understand why fans are frustrated by a couple seasons of mediocrity, but they also don't think that's enough to make any changes at the management level." - K.C. Johnson
My Team, Not Yours
In essence, that's a fat "No." The Reinsdorfs may be aware that fans are upset, but they're not about to let the fans start calling the shots. If #FireGarPax soldiers do storm the gates of the Madhouse like the beaches of Normandy, they're still paying customers. Upset paying customers are still paying customers.The Reinsdorf family wants to win, and they believe that Forman and Paxson are the right men to lead the team back to the promised land. In the meantime, it's a business. And thanks to loyal fans everywhere, business is booming. Remember that Forbes article about NBA jersey sales and merchandise? Well, the business publication just released another this week, ranking NBA teams' overall values. The Bulls come in at #4, worth an estimated $2.5 billion. Only the Knicks ($3.3 billion), Lakers ($3 billion) and Warriors ($2.6 billion) are worth more than Reinsdorf's team. Of that $2.5 billion, tens of millions come from ticket sales, concessions and merchandising. Hundreds of millions more come from TV deals."I know there's a perception that the Bulls don't care about the fans, that the Bulls don't want to win, they're about marketing. Look, they're a business. Absolutely they're about marketing...But yeah, of course they'd rather win than lose." - K.C. Johnson
