CHARACTER ONE
Basketball players can become billionaires. All they have to do is wake up to business and entrepreneurship.
CHARACTER TWO
How do they do that?
CHARACTER ONE
Mathematics says basketball is ripe for innovation! Ripe for disruption! Look at the history of basketball. What's most popular worldwide about basketball? I'll answer my own question. It's the running and gunning, it's Showtime, it's Phi Slamma Jamma, it's the dunks! It's the slam dunks at the end of incredible passes while on the run. When I was younger everybody went to see fast break basketball on the high school level.
CHARACTER TWO
But how do we get from here to there?
CHARACTER ONE
Everything's been laid out to disrupt basketball! All you have to do is study the history of the ABA and now look at the XFL! Look at what came before the XFL, there was the AAF (Alliance of American Football).
CHARACTER TWO
Yes and there was also the UFL, the CFL, the USFL, and now the XFL.
CHARACTER ONE
Some of those leagues have been and still are successful. Remember that Jim Kelly, Herschel Walker, Doug Flutie and Steve Young, all played for the USFL - if I remember correctly.
CHARACTER TWO
And don't forget the American Football League! It competed with the NFL until the NFL merged with the American Football League. Remember that Larry Csonka was a famous football player that was the number one pick for the American Football League's Miami Dolphins! Then his team once went undefeated after the merger with the NFL. That was the only undefeated perfect season in the NFL! Or to be more clear, after three seasons in the NFL, the Miami Dolphins were the only team to have a perfect season and then win the Super Bowl.
CHARACTER ONE
The bottom line is that if you study history and understand business, and understand how to do a startup, you can compete with the NBA! And if you do it right you can be wildly successful! That's because the situation is far better for another professional basketball league to compete with the NBA than it is for a competitor to the NFL.
CHARACTER TWO
How so? What do you mean?
CHARACTER ONE
Basketball has all the advantages! Basketball is a worldwide sport and it requires far less equipment! Worldwide, basketball is far more popular than American football. There has never been a better time in the history of the world to do a startup, create a new basketball league, or create new television programs, and videos, to take on the NBA!
CHARACTER ONE
How would you do it?
CHARACTER TWO
It's simple, follow the math! Follow the history of what has been successful before. First, get as many celebrity athletes as investors as possible. These celebrity athletes already have huge fan bases on Twitter, Instagram, and other social media outlets. Organize all the influencers possible who love fast break basketball! Celebrity athletes can be the first players!
CHARACTER TWO
But you said follow the math...
CHARACTER ONE
Exactly! The game of basketball has been slowed down by the three-point line. Follow basketball analytics! All you have to do to change the mathematics of basketball is start playing four-on-four full-court, three-on-three full-court, two-on-two full-court, and even one-on-one full-court.
CHARACTER TWO
You mean change the game slightly so all the magnificent athletes aren't simply running three-point line to three-point line. You mean change the game so stepping backwards behind the three-point line isn't the most important part of the game.
CHARACTER ONE
Exactly! You have described it in a nutshell. Instead of playing full court run and gun basketball, today's players are actually incentivized to move backwards. Thus we don't have nearly the number of fast breaks, unbelievable passes, and running slam dunks that we should have.
CHARACTER TWO
I get it! I get what you are saying. It is the perfect time in history to begin new reality TV shows, scripted TV shows, new basketball leagues, new games and tournaments, all built around playing basketball with fewer than five players.
CHARACTER ONE
That's right! It's all about the math. As basketball players have gotten bigger and bigger, the courts have gotten smaller and smaller. There's less room to run and gun. But it can all be fixed very simply, without cost, by simply moving down to four-on-four, then three-on-three, then two-on-two, then one-on-one!
CHARACTER TWO
Yes I get it! The overhead is incredibly small and the market is incredibly huge! Plus, it can be done today because all basketball players today have excellent ball handling skills, not like in the old days when only the guards could dribble full court.
CHARACTER ONE
Yes, if done right such a startup would make money from the get-go. I see what you mean by the players need to wake up, some of these organizations need to wake up, perhaps things like CloseUp360, PlayersTV, and all players like ex-NBA players, ex-college players, ex-high school players, and all the social networks, especially the new ones that are competing with Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, could wake up and turn basketball fans into sports reporters and journalists overnight! The old NBA and the old social networks could be taken down at the same time with competition!
CHARACTER TWO
Yes, that's it. That's how basketball players become billionaires.
Copyright (c) 2020 Brad Hennenfent, M.D. All rights reserved. This is an ongoing script and treatment for television shows, videos, and experiences in all possible media, invented and not yet invented, related to playing basketball.
