Allen: Celtics get their turn

After a number of years of amping up all media coverage and hype to follow the playoff runs of the Boston Red Sox and New England Patriots, it's now time to do the same with the Boston Celtics.

I'm curious to see how it turns out.

We've been told that Boston is now a two-sport town, baseball and football, and the local newspapers and media outlets have tuned their coverage and staff toward those particular sports. The Celtics and Bruins have been has-beens on the local sports scene for a long, long time now. However, when the Celtics traded for Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett this summer, there was a new buzz among the local fan and media base around the team. The Celtics were relevant again, at the very least. Sage Globe columnist Bob Ryan stated that they might even make the playoffs now. Ryan has seen a lot of basketball in his long career, and his caution regarding the outlook for this new look Celtics team threw some fans for a loop. Danny Ainge added several more key pieces along the way, and the Celtics not only made the playoffs, they romped to the third best record in this franchise's storied history.

However, the media coverage of this season wasn't equal to that given to the Red Sox and Patriots. Other than the Boston Globe and Boston Herald, no newspapers went on road trips with the team, as they do for the Sox and Pats. Some papers, such as the Providence Journal stopped their in-house Celtics coverage altogether this season. They chose to go with AP stories instead. In preparation for the season, the Globe brought in NBA writer Marc J Spears to replace Shira Springer on the day-to-day coverage of the team. This has proven to be an upgrade, but that was the only move made. Peter May has one foot out the door at the Globe, as does Jackie MacMullan, as both veteran NBA observers look to receive a buyout from the paper. This leaves Spears and Ryan to handle the bulk of the Celtics commentary, though Dan Shaughnessy is a veteran of the Celtics beat from way back as well.

Economics is certainly a reason for the cutbacks. As we see everywhere, the newspaper business is struggling. However, with just a few exceptions, the local papers haven't really cut back on their coverage of the Red Sox and Patriots. The Celtics enjoyed a record-setting campaign this season, and yet, in some aspects they actually had more coverage last season when they had one of the worst records in the NBA. Outlets actually cut back on their coverage of the team just as they were ready for this resurgence.

Television-wise, the coverage has improved. In mid-season Comcast SportsNet launched it's own HD channel and started showing road telecasts in High Definition for the first time. Of course, the Red Sox telecasts, home and away had been in HD for several years now. The Patriots courtesy of almost always having a featured game each week have had just about all of their games in HD for the last few years as well. For the Celtics, the move by CSN was a major step forward. The network also launched a weekly Celtics magazine show, and expanded their pre and post game coverage.

You hear more Celtics talk on the radio as well. WEEI has the rights to the broadcasts and sometimes they actually talk about the team, mixed in among their locked in storylines of bashing Manny Ramirez, talking steroids and Rhode Island steakhouses. Will they go on-site for the NBA finals, should the Celtics make it that far?

So what are things going to be like going forward? Will this playoff run see TV specials, on location sets, increased newspaper coverage and wall-to-wall sports radio talk? I sure hope so. We'll know then that the Celtics have truly arrived as equals of the Red Sox and Patriots in this sports-crazy town.

Bruce Allen is the creator of Boston Sports Media Watch, which has recently been recognized by SI.com as one of the best non-corporate sports web site's on the Internet.