Does anyone understand fhe rationale for this?
Trying to force teams not to tank early for draft picks? But it sure looks torturous
Nothing incites bodily violence quicker than a Duke fan turning in your direction and saying 'scoreboard.'
Increased TV viewership = increased ad sells = increased value of NBA television rights
I'm actually looking forward to it. Adam silver is thinking outside the box, and I like it.
Yea, you have to believe money is the main motivating force behind this idea. Who knows, maybe it will work and bring some additional viewers to the NBA in mid-season. Frankly, I watch very little pro basketball during the regular season, partly because the games almost seem irrelevant to what happens during the playoffs (and I know this is not completely correct, because of seeding and home court advantage).
Perhaps if it is a success, the NCAA could follow suit and create a mid-season (maybe early January, before a lot of league play begins) "March Madness" with the top 8 college teams in the composite polls in a 3-game mini tournament.
I wanted to post this question but couldn’t decide the best place, so I’ll try here.
Do people still find NFL games enjoyable?
I know the NFL dominates ratings but it feels like that is just habit at this point. I used to be able to watch any NFL game and be entertained. Now I find myself turning off pretty much every regular season game by the second quarter. Officiating is awful. The rules ridiculously favor the offense. Maybe I’m just too old and grumpy…
All of this is to say maybe Silver and the NBA see an opportunity to capture more eyes and are giving this a try to steal some viewers in a previously captured audience.
They wear cups in the NBA? And here I thought that was only baseball players. Guess you learn something new every day.
I do think that the NBA has a problem. Ratings have been declining. And while it still beats out other sports that are not the NFL, the trend is in the wrong direction.
And I see why. Who wants to watch a random regular season game when you don’t know which stars will be resting, which team is tanking, etc.?
I would think the NFL will start to face the same pressures — I don’t have a local team to root for and my viewing has dropped a ton over the past 5 years — but it seems to culturally entrenched that that should keep ratings up for a while.
Carolina delenda est
This looks similar to, but more sophisticated than, something the WNBA already has (they call it the "Commissioner's Cup"). Most people don't care at all about the Commissioner's Cup, and many fans don't even have any idea which games count for it. If you can get fan buy-in for something like this, then it has a chance, but they'll have to do a much better job of featuring and marketing it than the WNBA currently does. I'm skeptical, but the NBA has advantages that the WNBA doesn't, so maybe it'll work for them. If it does, it'll probably help the WNBA's version, too.
This year MLS instituted a midseason tournament that also included all LigaMx teams. In the months preceding the tournament it was roundly derided by fans and pundits alike. Why are we playing this? It's just a cynical money grab! etc. Then they held the tournament and the fans and pundits ended up loving it, for the most part. It didn't hurt that an MLS team won it and that team happened to be Messi’s Miami FC!
To answer your question, yes I still like to watch NFL games and I'm glad the rules favor the offense. If want a low scoring game, I'll watch soccer, which I also enjoy.
I can see the NBA having issues keeping fans engaged in an 82 game schedule and I'm not surprised that regular season rankings are decreasing. I agree that having starts 'rest' is an issue. I think that in the past people had favorite teams. That's still the case for some, especially people that live in or are from a city that has a team, but for others they are less team oriented and more player oriented. I know that I watch players these days more than teams. Many of the players I tune in to see are Duke players...and Steph Curry, of course. So if you're someone that is player oriented and the players you care about aren't playing, you're likely to tune out. If you've paid to attend an game in person you're like to be pretty pissed off.
The NBA’s problem isn’t a lack of interest it’s a lack of watching. Young fans are more than happy to see the highlights and box scores the next day on YouTube and tweeter. The only way to change that is restrict the use of highlights which would introduce a new set of problems.