Media’s Bias On The NBA Finals
Posted by Gil Harris on May 29th, 2009
Unless you’ve been in a cave during the last couple of weeks, its been quite clear who the media wants to see in the NBA finals. Nike has recently chipped in with the Kobe and Laron puppets who go at each other subliminally on who is the greatest. I must admit from the few commercials that I did see featuring the two, they did make me laugh. From Labron’s chalk toss, to Kobe’s 3 NBA championship rings, and a few others Nike is defiantly campaigning their endorsees pretty strong.
Even Vitamin Water has their own spiel on in my opinion who they favor to end up in the Finals. Only difference instead Vitamin Water choosing to use human actors in their campaign, debating who is the greatest 23 or 24, referring to the jersey numbers of the ‘09 MVP Lebron James and his respective rival counter part Kobe Bryant.
But If you’ve been tuning in to both Eastern and Western conference championship games, Denver and Orlando have made a pretty big marketing campaign of their own, only using the court as their choice of setting. Denver has been trading victories throughout with the Lakers on the advantage with a 3-2 lead putting Denver on the brink of elimination tonight on their home floor in game six, and a game closer to proving the media correct in the West. However, the story unfolds a little different out East as the Orlando Magic has proven to be a force to be wrecking with. Dwight Howard and the Magic have the advantage in the series with a 3-2 lead, and head to their home floor in a win or go home game for Cleavland, despite letting the opportunity to wrap the series up last night with a 10 point loss.
In all, I’m loving every bit of all the games in both series. However I don’t think there has ever been a clear cut favorite to battle it out in the finals since dating back to the days of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. Even then the media weighed in with commercial ads featuring the two rivals from their respective teams. So its inevitable that history repeats itself, but not without a few outside looking in looking to rewrite the storybook ending.
