Should the NBA consider moving the regular season to avoid competing with the NFL?

Godymas · Post #1 » by **Godymas** » Mon Jun 3, 2024 12:29 pm

The regular season typically starts around October and runs until April. Then the playoffs run for the rest of April until June. That would be an 8 month season.

Now the playoffs work out nice because they typically have 0 competition in terms of viewership, and the NBA usually gets more eyes after the All Star break. However, the All Star game has done a piss poor job at advertising the NBA as a watchable product lately, it almost feels like casual fans end up turned off by the All Star game and kind of give up on watching the regular season until the playoffs where they MIGHT tune in.

Most recently, the NFL has had no issue impeding on once sacred "NBA" days. The Xmas game recently clearly carved out a good piece for the NFL and it appears that Xmas is going to stay a thing in the NFL moving forward.

Now the NBA has to consider two things here. The first would be, where they want the playoffs to land. The playoffs need to be in a non-competitive time for sports so they can be highlighted. The second thing would be the fact that no matter what, the start of the regular season is going to be hit or miss because players and teams are very much figuring things out.

Because the start of the regular season is mostly meaningless, there can be overlap with the NFL in that regard, but as the season wears on the NBA should focus on pulling more viewers in highlighting high quality teams.

So here is the schedule I propose

Regular season start: Jan 1st - New Years day everyone is home, NBA players already play New Years day, New Years day can be a day for the NBA. The NFL has WEEK 18 scheduled for the week of Jan 1st next year. Week 18 is typically the most ignoreable week of football as almost all playoff matches have been set. Most teams rest their starters.

So Jan 1st the NBA season starts. Currently the in-season cup runs from Nov-December with the finals being at the start of December. In this schedule the in-season cup would start February, right at the end of the NFL playoffs. The NBA can 100% highlight NBA Cup games as a pre-cursor to the Super Bowl when a lot of people are viewing sports. The cup can really pick up post Super Bowl and this would put the Cup finals at the start of March which works out perfectly because March Madness typically begins mid March. So the Cup happens and then goes into March Madness to get people hyped up even more for this format of play.

As March Madness winds down, we're at about mid April, which is the PERFECT time for the All Star weekend. Fans are hyped up about basketball from March Madness and so those that were not NBA watchers now get to see the All Star weekend to pique their interest while it's at an all time high from March Madness.

After the All Star Break, we have May, June, July, and August. May and June finish off the regular season. July and August have the playoffs. NO ONE is competing with the NBA around this time except for regular season Baseball/Tennis. The entire Summer could be focused on Basketball and this has one more unintended benefit. It makes NBA players HAPPIER to be in cold cities. Suddenly being in Minnesota doesn't suck as much in the summer and when winter comes the stars can head back to their second homes in LA or Miami to practice their off-season. This makes target cities a much lesser deal. Obviously they will still matter, but at the very least now the NBA players get to enjoy their cities a bit more.

Obviously NBA players are now working in the summer, but does it really matter for them if they can just vacation in Cancun or wherever in the Winter? Plus NBA players now get Thanksgiving and Xmas to spend with their families which is a nice little trade-off.

It just feels like this could be a game changing move for the NBA with the summer being so open for sports. It also happens that the timing works out really well with other competing sports.

Johnny Bball · Post #2 » by **Johnny Bball** » Mon Jun 3, 2024 12:40 pm

Because less people are home and watching TV in the summer. And less people want to go in a building in the summer to watch a sport, than sitting under the sun.

Unless you want to make a league in Miami where maybe its opposite for a couple months.

jasonxxx102 · Post #3 » by **jasonxxx102** » Mon Jun 3, 2024 12:43 pm

No /thread

UcanUwill · Post #4 » by **UcanUwill** » Mon Jun 3, 2024 12:47 pm

1. International tournaments, plus all the other league transfers plus NCAA transfers get shafted.
2. How much NFL even impacts NBA ratings, NFL has far less games.
3. How much of NBA revenue is domestic? I assume majority, but they must take a huge cut from international, and internationals mostly do not care about NFL whatsoever.

To do such revamp with no regard for everything else what happens within same sport, just because of a different sports league, seems ridiculous.

Yoshun · Post #5 » by **Yoshun** » Mon Jun 3, 2024 1:01 pm

No.

The NBA and NFL don't really compete all that much, it's really only Sunday and Monday (Thursday games typically suck). When the NBA really starts getting interesting, around the All-star break, the NFL is done anyway.

JayMKE · Post #6 » by **JayMKE** » Mon Jun 3, 2024 1:26 pm

Probably should just shorten the season but that doesn’t have anything to do with the NFL. NBA & NFL don’t really compete directly.

Post #7 » by **Nuntius** » Mon Jun 3, 2024 1:41 pm

Nope. The RS has a number of problems but competing with the NFL isn't one of them.

brutalitops · Post #8 » by **brutalitops** » Mon Jun 3, 2024 1:45 pm

shrink · Post #9 » by **shrink** » Mon Jun 3, 2024 1:50 pm

They don’t want to compete with Caitlyn Clark and the WNBA

durden_tyler · Post #10 » by **durden_tyler** » Mon Jun 3, 2024 2:32 pm

The NBA is fine long-term with the current calendar. American money will always be there (less than NFL American money yes) but internationally, the NBA owns the NFL so there’s that.

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Stannis · Post #11 » by **Stannis** » Mon Jun 3, 2024 3:22 pm

I think this would make things worse. When it's Spring + Summer, people want to go outside and/or vacation.

MLB/Baseball already has trouble getting viewers and selling tickets during the spring / summer months, even when there's not much "competition" from other sports.

Also, NFL will always have higher ratings per game. There's only 17 games in a regular season. It's easier for them to promote games and have the holiday bangers. NBA's 82 game season is tough to work with.

Post #12 » by **Cactus Jack** » Mon Jun 3, 2024 4:13 pm

I'm one of the few who doesn't typically start watching much Basketball until after the Football season. But I'm a Football junkie. It takes precedence from August until January for me. I also realize that isn't necessarily the case for everyone.

The league is not going to make drastic changes just due to ratings.

jkvonny · Post #13 » by **jkvonny** » Tue Jun 4, 2024 8:53 pm

jasonxxx102 wrote:No /thread

This.

Curmudgeon · Post #14 » by **Curmudgeon** » Tue Jun 4, 2024 10:39 pm

Nah. With condensed games readily available on the Internet you can always watch both if there is a conflict. Non-issue.

madmaxmedia · Post #15 » by **madmaxmedia** » Tue Jun 4, 2024 11:28 pm

I think this is an interesting topic for discussion. I wouldn't mind having NBA in the summer personally as I don't watch MLB, but the overlap with the NFL has not hurt the NBA IMO.

MavsDirk41 · Post #16 » by **MavsDirk41** » Wed Jun 5, 2024 2:55 am

No keep it the way it is

JustBuzzin · Post #17 » by **JustBuzzin** » Wed Jun 5, 2024 3:05 am

Stannis wrote:I think this would make things worse. When it's Spring + Summer, people want to go outside and/or vacation.

Not sure about others but I hate summer. Literally the worst season out of the entire month for me. Sure vacations are cool, but after my summer vacations I'm pretty much trying to stay inside with the cool AC. I hate being outside in the summer nothing but sweat and the sun beaming on my skin. I just hate it!

Spring and Fall are the perfect weather months for me.

azcatz11 · Post #18 » by **azcatz11** » Wed Jun 5, 2024 3:05 am

It's fine the way it is. The summer allows one to have a few months off from sports. Every 4 years we have Olympics and I watch a little baseball. By the time September rolls around, everyone is hyped for football season and you know basketball season is around the corner...no need for over stimulation of sports year round

sp6r=underrated · Post #19 » by **sp6r=underrated** » Wed Jun 5, 2024 5:47 am

This seems like a terrible idea for the NBA's business based off the catasthrophic ratings for a Lebron-fueled Lakers vs Miami nba finals in October. It would be worse during the vacation season.

Stannis · Post #20 » by **Stannis** » Wed Jun 5, 2024 1:02 pm

JustBuzzin wrote:
Stannis wrote:I think this would make things worse. When it's Spring + Summer, people want to go outside and/or vacation.

Not sure about others but I hate summer. Literally the worst season out of the entire month for me. Sure vacations are cool, but after my summer vacations I'm pretty much trying to stay inside with the cool AC. I hate being outside in the summer nothing but sweat and the sun beaming on my skin. I just hate it!

Spring and Fall are the perfect weather months for me.

IMHO, while there is AC, being inside a crowded indoor arena isn't that much better either during the summer.

And you still have to deal with parking + walking to and from the arena during a hot humid summer day/night.