Lockout Publicity Equals Good Publicity?

There's no question that the NFL and the NBA want to avoid missing games this season, if realistically possible.  A shortened season means millions of dollars of lost revenue, not to mention a serious reputational hit as fans perceive both players and owners as (even more) greedy.  But assuming the leagues can get their acts together and settle their respective CBAs before the scheduled starts of their regular seasons (seemingly likely for the NFL, perhaps not so likely for the NBA), might all of the additional publicity generated by these summer lockouts actually be a good thing for professional football and basketball?

In a traditional NFL / NBA offseason period, the average sports fan spends the summer watching baseball and golf.  The NFL and NBA drafts get a fair amount of press coverage, as do the opening of preseason camps and significant summer trades and free agent signings.  This year, though, the NFL and NBA are all over SportsCenter every day - updates on CBA negotiations get top billing over exciting MLB games on many mornings, and I've seen more of John Clayton this week than I typically do in December.  Even "news items" that typically receive little to no publicity are garnering attention because of the lockouts.  This week, for example, the NBA released it's regular season schedule, an event that would typically fly completely under the sports media radar.  This summer, however, the likelihood that there might not be a regular season has sports commentators talking non-stop about all of the exciting basketball action that we might miss.

You can argue that even the threat of missing NBA and NFL games hurts those leagues.  Teams can't sell tickets and sponsorships during the lockouts, and some fans will likely be angered by the constant bickering between owners and players.  But I bet that, if the NFL and NBA can avoid missing games, most fans will completely forget about the labor disputes by the time the first coins are flipped and jump balls are tossed.  At the same time, all of the buzz created by this summer's threat of a regular season-impacting work stoppage could increase the excitement for already-highly anticipated NFL and NBA regular seasons.  In a way, all of the summer lockout talk might, in the long run, be good for professional football and hoops.

I can't remember a summer where people were more focused on basketball and football (and, as a result, less focused on baseball) than this one, even though MLB is in the middle of an extremely exciting regular season, which tells me that the NFL and NBA might be poised for even bigger than normal years.  Of course, this entire argument will be moot if the lockouts do actually impact the regular seasons.  For the NFL, that seems extremely unlikely, as within a week we're likely to have forgotten about the dispute and begin focusing even harder on the return of regular season (and fantasy) football.  While the NBA legitimately might miss part of / all of the regular season, if the basketball players and owners can come to terms quicker than expected then it, too, can reap the benefits of a summer atop the headlines.