Kids today . . . I don’t understand ’em

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I was getting my haircut today, and the TV in the barbershop was set to some kids’ channel that was featuring a show about some weird form of basketball where the players can bounce on a trampoline on the way to dunking the ball into the basket. Sort of a cool idea, should definitely appeal to the targeted demographic of 10-year-old boys. It was set up as though it was what we might call a “real” professional sports league, with teams, won-lost records, upcoming games, announcers calling plays, and with players including some retired NBA stars. Not quite as over-the-top as professional wrestling, but that sort of thing.

Anyway, what puzzled me about all this was how little action there was on the screen. There were lots of interviews with players, video features, highlights of previous games, replays, and logos, but very little actual basketball.

Is this what 10-year-old boys want? I’m sure they’ve done lots of marketing surveys, so the answer is probably yes. But it left me extremely confused. Here you have a made-for-TV sport, the rules can be anything they want–I’d think they’d want there to be as much action as possible–passing, dunking, running, jumping and all the rest. While the ball was in play, the players were impressively athletic. But the ball was almost never in play. To me, it was much less exciting than any random basketball game you might see on ESPN. Again, they can make any rules they want–so why do they do it this way? I’d think kids would prefer to see live action rather than a series of disconnected highlights and replays. Perhaps someone could explain to me?

8 thoughts on “Kids today . . . I don’t understand ’em”

  1. I was just watching that recently as well, funny coincidence…part of it is that I don't think it's really Cartoon Network programming – I believe either Spike or Versus generally shows it or records it. More to the point, it does seem strange to have something that's all about action show little action…the reason, I guess, is that they only play a 20-minute game (asking the players to do that for longer would be suicide and diminish the quality of the game). So it's too much time to compress into a half-hour show…I'm sure there are better options, but I'm not really thinking of them at the moment. They show a ton of highlights from other games, which is also action and fits the bill pretty nicely.

  2. My guess is that the action itself doesn't matter as much as the perception of action being brought about by quick edits and modern television style.

    They do market research on that too.

  3. "lots of interviews with players, video features, highlights of previous games, replays, and logos"

    Is that much different than SportsCenter?

    It sounds pretty in line with the short bits of information that have been taking over popular culture for modern attention spans.

  4. There's signalling going on. All really important sports have a lot of dead time for announcers to fill. That's what Roone Arledge knew and developed (remember "up close and personal" features at the Olympics, instead of showing actual action?)

    Look at the NFL on fall Sundays. Lots of pregame. Lots of sideline reporting. Lots of interviews. Lots of predictions. Only two hours of actual action in the two games shown.

    Gosh, even youth soccer/baseball/basketball — matching uniforms, uniformed referees with whistles, lined fields, coaches yelling, parents taking pictures/videos.

    People who really like to play, play shirts and skins (or dark shirts versus light shirts).

  5. Maybe it is important for the kids to identify with the players, and they therefore want to see interviews more than play itself. Maybe the game, or the highlights, is just a proof of the abilities of the players?

  6. For awhile, the coverage of the Beijing Olympics was a big improvement, coverage of the Olympics features lots and lots of stories but very little of the actual sports. I came close to giving up watching them because of this.

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