Post#92 » by lilfishi22 » Sun Jul 30, 2023 11:45 pm
I think the product would dilute itself if it was running nearly all year round. The long NBA season already has massive lulls of interests during certain months of the roughly 6-8month calendar. Eg if you're one of the 50% of the NBA who won't play basketball beyond the regular season, then you'll likely only have transient interest in the playoffs (unless you gamble or you're hardcore). The post-ASW period can be a real flip of a coin in terms of likely fan interests as it consists of a bunch of teams on different pathways of either load management ahead of the playoffs, tanking or fighting to stay in the playoff picture. Jan and Feb tend to be a bit of a quiet period as well after the holiday month of December and not a ton happening until ASW. Essentially, no matter how long the season is, whether you stretch it to 9 months or keep it where it is, there will be lulls in the season and the longer the season, the longer the lulls.
To me, I think where it's at right now is fine. I personally prefer more games per week than fewer so stretching out an 82-game season from 6 months to say 9-10 doesn't do anything for me. I would love to say I would have the same level of interest throughout an 8-9month season but I don't even have that for a 6-7 month season...because life. I also think being able to turn off basketball for about 6mths of the year and watch other sports or focus on other things is healthy.
To satiate the all-year round folks, perhaps they should move the G-league season so there's less of an overlap with the NBA season. So instead of kicking off the GL roughly when the NBA begins, they should push it to after the NBA Finals finishes. So the 5 month GL season would start in say, mid-June and the Finals would be around Xmas. Or watch the WNBA who plays during the NBA offseason.