"The Game Within the Game"

Steven Secular’s “Beyond Basketball” article discusses how, specifically from 1982 to 1990, the NBA transformed itself from a mainly administrative sports organization into a global media and entertainment conglomerate. Specifically, this reading explains how the NBA played a major role in the cultivation of basketball becoming “media content,” as well as the overall mediatization of sport in general during this period of time (Secular, p. 2). Through the NBA’s evolution from its’ initial function as a competitive sport into a nationally recognized, mediated conglomerate, it can represent the shift in the perception of modern basketball by acknowledging the league’s portrayal of the sport as “produced television content” (Secular, p. 7).

During the duration of Netflix’s High Flying Bird (Soderbergh, 2019), we are thrust into the lives of newly drafted NBA player, Erick, and his manager, Ray, during their agencies’ lockout. Struggles between team owners and the Player’s Association to agree on terms with one another have led to many players, including Erick, unable to generate revenue for themselves. On the film’s main poster, there is a quote that reads: “play the game on top of the game.” Essentially, the lockout is used to depict the NBA as what it truly is: a business first. Take for example a scene in which Erick and Ray are arguing about the pair’s lack of income. While Erick is struggling to understand how players like himself cannot simply get back out on the court and play, Ray explains that “the league is a business.”

In High Flying Bird, one of the most commonly referenced themes is the NBA’s invention of a “game on top of a game,” meaning the business they have implemented on top of the sport itself. While the players want to fix the problem by settling with the owners and getting back onto the court, the NBA’s owners have their business in mind first, holding out on the lockout so that they can re-negotiate their terms with the major networks they work with, a tactic that will likely have them eventually settling for “billions” (Soderbergh, 2019).

The cultivation of basketball into “media content” as described by Secular is evident in this film. Take for example another scene where Erick and a rival teammate play in a 1v1 game during a charity basketball event. Filmed and uploaded online by some of the local kids at the event, the video goes viral, amassing 24 million views. As the clip continues to grow, Ray informs Erick there is a chance the NBA could sue them for profiting off basketball-related content that is not connected to the league itself. As Ray explains, the NBA “owns their own image,” and in doing so, attempts to hold control over the mediatization of their players to create content that will gain them the most revenue.

High Flying Bird provides close connections to Secular’s description of the NBA’s transition into a globally recognized, media and entertainment conglomerate. During the trials of the lockout, we watch as the NBA owners attempt to maintain control over their brand and the commercial imperatives of its mediation over its function as a competitive sport (Secular, p. 12). This is evident through their refusal to end the lockout in attempts to renegotiate with networks for more valuable contracts, as well as their issue with players generating income from outside events like 1v1 tournaments away from the hold of the league.

In conclusion, the NBA’s role in shifting basketball from a competitive sport into a mediated, nationally recognized television program has changed the way basketball is perceived today. Their development of the NBA as a global media product has allowed for the league to capitalize on "new distribution technologies, specific audiences, and a global reach” that has in turn created an entirely new and much more efficient way to create revenue as a worldwide company (Secular, p. 12). The international media and entertainment conglomerate that is the NBA today has its’ priorities set primarily on the business side of basketball as opposed to the actual competitive sport itself, truly displaying what Ray described as “the game within the game” (Soderbergh, 2019).