NBA Cup 2023

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

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.

So are you saying it's an attention span issue? I don't see that at all. I mean, football goes for usually 3+ hours and baseball seems to have


--- whoops! Squirrel!

[awhom111]

Or stole a page from world football. Those competitions have wider fields and are separate from the regular season but even the granddaddy (FA Cup) has been diminished in importance.

The NBA keeps saying that it is inspired by soccer, but the formats that they have tried in the WNBA and G League are clearly borrowed from European basketball. Most top European leagues play a double-round robin regular season and the games are arranged so that the season is split in half and one full round-robin is played first. They then use the record at that point to determine who qualifies for the cup. The NBA has an idea of when they wanted the cup final and a lot more teams so they cannot use the WNBA format that uses ten intra-conference games and then an inter-conference final. The G League's format is more similar to something that has historically been used in Turkey's league and a handful of other places, like France's second division. Some European countries do have a basketball cup that is similar to the common soccer format, like France, where Antonio Vrankovic's team in the second division knocked out Jordan Tucker's team, which plays in the top division.

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.

Part of it is the league's own scheduling decisions though. It has been funny to see player reactions differ since some of them have played in European leagues that have similar competitions and others have not. We will see what they do now that it looks like there will be 13 teams in 2025.

[Steven43]

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.

Love the NFL. No other sports’ regular season holds even remotely close to the appeal of that of the NFL. I don’t watch many games in their entirety, but I check up on them throughout the day (Sunday).

I record every NFL game on YouTube TV (unlimited recording space) and watch them here and there throughout the week, particularly fast-forwarding through to watch key plays and moments that I have read about or heard discussion of.

The only sport that comes close to the NFL for me is tennis 🎾 at the Majors (Australian, French, Wimbledon, US Open).

[Skydog]

This in-season tourney seems too early in the season to really work. I could see such a tourney providing a mid-season break in say Feb. but starting one now seems more similar to pre-season fine tuning.

[Matches]

Watching Pacers/ Cavs - these courts 😧. I think it might be too much blue light before bed.