It’s ironic that Mark Cuban came out saying that the NFL may “implode” in 10 years due to over exposure of their product, when the NBA is one of the most over exposed sports in the world.

There are TOO DAMN MANY NBA games.

Both regular season and post season. And when there are too many games, it’s too easy for fans to tune out because they don’t care because the games are meaningless. Since there are so many games, each individual one has little to no impact on who will eventually become champion.

This happens in hockey, college basketball, and definitely baseball. Too many games, too many opportunities to make up ground so it almost makes most of the regular season feels like exhibition.

That’s one of the (many) things that the NFL and college football get right.

With fewer games (for obvious physical reasons), every single game is significant. There’s no “dog days of football” because your entire team’s season could depend on the very next game.

Plus every single playoff game is sudden death. Some NBA teams don’t even sweat if they get down 2-0 in a playoff series. They know they have chances to come back.

So here are some humble/unsolicited/probably not feasible suggestions to the NBA about their scheduling. You’ll see there are some strong NFL parallels.

 

Andy’s Suggestions to Make the NBA Schedule Suck Less

  • Opening Day of the season is Christmas Day
  • NBA Season should be 50 games — 60 at the absolute most.
    • Remember the Lock Out shortened season when EVERY game meant something? Good times.
  • The Playoffs will take 5 Weekends total
  • Playoff teams should be reduced from the current 8 per conference to 6.
  • Top two seed from each conference will earn byes, remaining teams will compete in a Wild Card Round (same as current NFL Model)
  • Wild Card Round will be Best of Three all on the high seeded team’s court.
    • TV Schedule will be Th-Sa-Mo (if necessary) for two of the matchups and Fr-Su-Tu (if necessary for the other two.
  • Brackets will reseed after WC Round (#1 seed always gets the lowest remaining opponent.
  • The Divisional and Conference Championship rounds are also Best of Three and follow the same Th-Sa-Mo/Fr-Su-Tu format.
  • After the two Final teams are determined, there will be a one week break (similar to NFL)
  • The Championship is determined by ONE game played on the 2nd Saturday following the Conference Championships.
  • Use the entire week leading up to the game as a media hype machine (just like the Super Bowl)
  • Cities and television networks will bid for the right to host/televise the spectacle
    • The singularity of the event and concrete date would drive up demand and prices for tickets.
    • Could have enough demand to hold in locations like the Final Four (100k+ seat domed football stadiums)
  • NBA Final Saturday would draw more advertisers and ticket revenue than the best 7-game series ever could.

The #1 rule of show business is “Always leave them wanting more”.

The NFL does that, College Football does that, March Madness does that.

The NBA does not. If anything, there’s too damn much. It’s like being at a 3rd tier buffet – nothing’s good, but there’s a lot of it!!! The season is too long and the two-month+ playoffs are FAR too long.

The powers that be would never go for it (reduced opportunities for ticket revenue, statistical records would have to be altered, TV revenue would shift). But they’re not seeing the forest through the trees, less would be more with the NBA.

Plus how BADASS would a One-Game NBA Final be? Come. On.

 

Also they should make the rule 2-years removed from high school instead of 1, but that’s an argument for another day…

 

 

 

[Photo Eric Kilby]

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