How biased was the NBA media towards the big markets in the pre-internet age?

[Im Still Ballin]

I've read articles from the '80s about how guys in the big markets (LA/NYC/BOS) got more and better press. It was also suggested that this gave them favourable advantages regarding awards, all-star appearances, and all-NBA selections.

Any NBA historians/experts that can verify this?

I imagine because there was no NBA TV or league pass, it was extremely difficult to watch all games. Viewership would've been limited to local networks and whoever played the national games.

[GimmeThat]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_salary_cap#:~:text=The%20NBA%20had%20a%20salar y,the%20League%20in%20the%20future.

[DCL]

teams like the kings, clippers, and bullets stunk in the shit hole almost every season.

tv airtime was limited to good teams. shit teams got no coverage, for obvious $$$ reasons.

NBA on NBC wasn't gonna show BULLETS vs NETS.

even ahmad rashard wasn't gonna ever mention them in whatever NBA show he hosted back then.

basically, if you were a shit team in the nba back then, you were treated like a team located in siberia.

[insight]

The NBA Finals were taped delayed in the early 80s, it was difficult to keep up with any team on TV. Cable TV was still in it's infancy and over the air TV didn't carry the majority of NBA games. If your team was not in the playoffs, it was almost impossible to watch your team consistently.
On the flip side, there were more teams with superstar quality players on them.

[GimmeThat]

I suppose you can be a fan of ownership group instead of fan of players. still, 20% on 10,000 is not the same as 20% on 100,000.

[90sgoat]

That was probably one of the reasons the All Star games used to be actual games with people playing defense and trying.

It would be the only time for some of these stars in small markets to really play in from of the entire country.

[La Frescobaldi]

The 80s was high end living like you can’t even imagine. You could see a game almost whenever you wanted. Before that? Forget it.

Was on a fishing trip with the guys out in Wyoming somewhere, drove cross country and up in the mountains and we ran into a guy that was a coach at some high school. Well we started talkin hoops and he was leaving that afternoon because Buffalo was going to be on tv. Well.

We had all heard of Bob McAdoo but none of us had ever seen him, all you could do was read Sporting News or the papers but this coach had some highlight film of him that he used, to show his team how to play basketball. About a minute or ninety seconds of McAdoo in action.
Long story short we ended up loading the gear and following this man to his house about seventy miles so we could watch that game and then Mac only played the first half and got a Charley horse or something lol
That was early 70s might have been his mvp season not sure on that but I bet we watched that little highlight reel five times such a good dude that coach brought us right to his house, strangers, too for a BIG DANG EVENT.

[Lakers Legend#32]

Even back then nobody gave a damn about the Fly Over States.