Some may agree that the NBA starting its season on Christmas would be the perfect gift for fans all over the world. However, making Christmas day the NBA’s Opening Day moving forward poses some implications that the league doesn’t need to face. Here are the five reasons why.
1. Let the NBA compete to show its true strength
If the NBA is serious about professional basketball taking the lead and cementing itself as the No. 1 sport in the country, then it has to overtake football. If people are only watching basketball watch basketball because no other sport is on television, it doesn’t really prove much. But if people eventually prefer to watch basketball even if there’s a football or baseball game also taking place, then it would speak volumes to the strength of basketball as a sport. Shifting to a start in December would immediately rule this out.
2. Opening Day and Christmas day provide two opportunities
They say that it’s a bad idea to put all your eggs in one basket. By combining Opening Day and Christmas day into one, it also increases the risk of flopping in revenue if the risk does not pay off. One mishap with public relations or one unforeseen complication could prove to be costly. With diversifying into two big days that can bring a potential spike in revenue, it allows the NBA to minimize risk and maximize how much it could gain.
3. Rust and performance
Typically, fans and critics don’t put a lot of emphasis on the start of the season until 10 games into it. This is because it takes around 10 games to get a good gauge of all the metrics and teams’ identities for the season.
By putting emphasis on the very first game of the season on Christmas day, it doesn’t show the full picture as players are still trying to figure out how to gel and to shake off rust from the offseason, and it results in a lot of uncertainty which could be detrimental to one of the most anticipated days of the season. With two months’ worth of playing time heading into Christmas Day, it makes watching the games sweeter knowing that everyone is working at full capacity.
4. Logistical headwinds
The NBA already has its hands full with the league restart this July in Disney World. It has proposed numerous rigid measures to ensure safety of everyone who will be present in the facility. Obviously, this took a lot of logistical planning in order to pull off. Not to mention, this will cost the NBA a lot, too, as ticket sales will be a non-factor and it will have to rely solely on TV revenue.
With all that in mind, the logistical nightmare of moving an entire schedule might not be the best idea. By starting on Christmas, it’s not only the regular season games that will be moved, but also the playoffs, draft, free agency, summer league, fall league and training camp. It might just be too much to ask if the NBA’s calendar were to have a major shift.
5. Player approval
Would NBA players buy in? After all, they dedicate their lives to the sport. Veterans have been following a schedule for years where they have plotted specific regimens throughout the course of the season and offseason. A shift in the calendar would also entail the players making lifestyle changes. At the end of the day, it’s the players who need to have a major say in a possible shift of schedule as they would be the most affected party by the change.
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