E-Mail This Article to a Friend Future shock: When newcomers rule the roost, the networks cringe BY CHRISTOPHER YOUNG

In the 1989 film Back to the Future Part II, one of the prominent issues affecting the space-time continuum was the idea of possessing a sports almanac — published in the year 2001 — and taking it back to the year 1955, thereby allowing the book’s owner unlimited knowledge of all future sporting events. This allowed the unscrupulous Biff to become rich by the year 2015, before Michael J. Fox’s Marty McFly, in tandem with Christopher Lloyd’s Dr. Brown, went back in time, deprived Biff of the magical book, and thereby preserved history.

If you haven’t seen Back to the Future, then you have no idea what I’m talking about, but imagine the confusion that Marty McFly circa 1985 — armed with that almanac — would have experienced as he read up on the sports happenings of the early 2000s, because many of the teams that are prospering and even winning championships during our present sports era did not even exist 20 years ago.

After all, even if your futuristic sports almanac asserted in black and white that the Tampa Bay Lightning would win the 2004 Stanley Cup, could you in your right mind actually put money on that outlandish concept? What about the Minnesota Timberwolves winning the NBA title? The Florida Marlins winning the World Series — twice? The Carolina Panthers reaching the precipice of winning the Super Bowl?

Indeed, many of pro sports’ Johnny-come-latelies have moved rapidly to the apex of their leagues, and the bizarre concept of an expansion team becoming an immediate contender (and even a champion) has become so commonplace that one barely blinked an eye when a team like the Arizona Diamondbacks — having joined baseball’s National League in 1998 — won the World Series over the long-established New York Yankees in the fall of 2001.

Not so long ago, only big cities that could generate upper-echelon viewership numbers would be granted professional franchises, while sports fans of less-populated areas would likely back the team that was closest geographically. As an example, residents of North Carolina did not have any pro teams as recently as 1987, so fans generally supported teams from the DC area, or perhaps those from Atlanta. Yet within a decade, the Tar Heel State received three pro teams (the NFL’s Panthers, the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes, and the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets). A similar thing happened in Tampa Bay, Florida: 30 years ago the area had no pro teams, but today it has three, including the Super Bowl champion of a year ago, and perhaps within a fortnight a Stanley Cup winner (a 12-year-old team that until this season seemed a symbol of futility).

While these franchises are still viewed by the major networks as small-market teams, they are proud members of the four prominent sports leagues in the US, which makes their host cities feel like legitimate metropolises. Whether some of them deserve it is another story, but that’s the way sports are these days. Furthermore, the multi-million-dollar entry fees paid by new teams to the existing team owners make league expansion very appealing, even though 30-team leagues often find their talent pool sadly diluted.

The networks that shell out big money for exclusive rights to telecast the playoffs and title rounds of these sports often find themselves frustrated and helpless when the finalists emerge. Too often, TV marketing whizzes find themselves in the unenviable position of trying to promote a final-round match-up between two teams that are not only unappealing to anyone outside the two cities involved, but whose rosters are made up of complete unknowns, with little marquee value.

Take hockey, for example. Do you think ABC and its sports partner, ESPN, are looking forward to the prospect of a seven-game battle for Lord Stanley’s Cup between the Lightning and the San Jose Sharks? These teams hail from regions ranked among the lowest in terms of hockey interest, and yet it’s very likely that the Lightning (as the top overall seed) and the Sharks (the second seed in the West) could be the final pair in this star-crossed (final?) NHL season. This would be doubly disastrous for ABC, because without a Canadian team involved, viewership north of the border diminishes significantly. And while the network doesn’t necessarily want to see the Sharks’ opponent, the sixth-seeded Calgary Flames, advance to the Cup Finals, it would still generate enough enthusiasm in Canada to garner some kind of ratings. Yet Calgary playing Tampa Bay for the championship would be as appealing for Northeast hockey fans as the Westminster Dog Show is to ferret owners.

The networks that initially bid for these rights certainly envision the likes of a Detroit, Boston, Philadelphia, or New York in the Stanley Cup mix, but all too often they get stuck with teams in the finals that do not come from traditional hockey towns. Last year saw the excitement-deprived New Jersey Devils meeting the 10-year-old Anaheim Mighty Ducks; the year before, the Carolina Hurricanes made an improbable appearance in the Cup Finals; and what would Biff think of the Colorado Avalanche — in Denver since only 1995 — having won two Cups in just nine years of existence?

Let’s hop over to hoops: the networks are likely praying to every god they can think of that the LA Lakers will make the NBA Finals. Having the controversial Shaq and Kobe against anybody else would make the TV honchos’ hefty financial commitment worthwhile. But what if LA doesn’t make it? The other seven teams still in contention are Minnesota (est. 1989), Miami (’88), Sacramento (’85), New Jersey (’77), San Antonio (’76), Indiana (’76), and Detroit (’57). LA-Detroit or LA-Indiana would get pretty good ratings, but nobody wants to see New Jersey in the finals for the third straight time, and network officials will likely commit hara-kiri if the last two teams standing are Miami and Minnesota. Five of those remaining teams have never won an NBA title, and to casual fans, only a couple of those teams have more than a few players that anyone’s ever heard of. Maybe people used to get sick of the Celtics, Bulls, and Lakers in the finals every year, but they always tuned in; that’s unlikely to be the case for any match-up that doesn’t include the all-star squad from Tinsel Town.

When the NFL used to come to mind, you tended to think of the traditional juggernauts: the Packers, Raiders, Redskins, Steelers, and Cowboys. Lately, though, the list of teams that have thrived in pro football are the relative newcomers: again, you have a host of teams that didn’t even exist 25 years ago, including the Indianapolis Colts (est. ’84), the NFC champion Panthers (’95), the Jacksonville Jaguars (’95; conference finalists in 1997), the St. Louis Rams (’95; champions in ’00 and runners-up in ’02), the Baltimore Ravens (’96; Super Bowl champs in 2001), and the Tennessee Titans (’97; runners-up in ’00).

Finally, on the diamonds, the D-Backs and Marlins, who have 17 years of existence between them, have won three of the last seven World Series, which is three more than the long-established Cardinals, Red Sox, Cubs, Pirates, Phillies, Orioles, and Giants have won combined in the last 20 seasons. Even the 27-year-old Blue Jays have won a couple of championships. In fact, it’s probably likely that the main reason so many people want to see a Cubs–Red Sox World Series is because people are tired of the newcomers getting immediate rewards, while long-suffering North Siders and Bostonians remain mired in decades-long title famines.

Just why a city like Miami or Phoenix or Charlotte or Tampa Bay gets to celebrate a world title within a few years of being awarded a pro franchise is a question for another day. After all, it’s all about putting the best team on the field, court, or ice, and one would think that the older franchises would have a more experience in figuring out how to go about building a championship team.

City size doesn’t always matter, either. Los Angeles has had great success with its Lakers, but the Clippers are a long-running joke, the Dodgers have won but two titles in 38 seasons, the NHL Kings have never won a Cup, and the city doesn’t even have a football team (and won only one Super Bowl even when it did — with the transient LA Raiders — in 1984). New York can boast about the Yankees all it wants, but the Knicks are 30 years removed from an NBA title, the 42-year-old Mets have won only two crowns, the Rangers’ 1994 Cup is their only one in 64 years, and the Jets and Giants have but three championships between them in the 38-year history of the Super Bowl. Finally, Chicago won six NBA titles behind MJ, but the Blackhawks, one of the NHL’s Original Six, haven’t won a Cup since 1961 (and have just three overall), the Cubs–White Sox tandem is trophy-less since World War I, and the Bears’ impressive triumph in 1986 remains the team’s sole appearance in the Super Bowl. And we won’t even discuss Atlanta’s long-running futility in the sports arena.

So batten down the hatches and get yourselves ready for the pyromaniac’s dream Stanley Cup match-up of the Lightning and Flames, and even for the prospect of a T-Wolves-Pacers Midwestern snoozefest. Given those scenarios, I can’t wait for the Padres and White Sox in the Fall Classic, followed four months later by the Seahawks and Bengals in the Super Bowl.

Suddenly, the year 1955 doesn’t sound so bad.

"Sporting Eye" runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com. Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com