i think most of them are bottom-line focused in that they're not just going to punt revenue for the abstract idea of a "quality product" but there are pathways to making up most of it. obviously a big bump in the national tv deals would help, premiumization of the remaining reg season games, some other iffier things like international revenue, gambling, topshot, etc. i think one of the harder things left is breaking free of the RSNs and the 72 games a year thing but the crumbling of cable tv should help with that. i think we're 10 years away from this being a serious discussion.
― call all destroyer, Friday, 30 April 2021 18:50 (three years ago) link
re punting revenue idk most or some of these rich guys im assuming have made long term strategic plans before or at least heard of the concept
― lag∞n, Friday, 30 April 2021 18:53 (three years ago) link
i think baseball could be a useful warning too, dont want to end up like baseball
― lag∞n, Friday, 30 April 2021 18:54 (three years ago) link
like also the players and basketball ops people have already made their position pretty clear. the traditional methods of capturing consumer sentiment like tv ratings and game attendance are pretty useless at the moment but my guess is that there's an underrating of the erosion of interest due to guys never playing. i heard somewhere that we recently went like 3 weeks between national tv games where both teams were good and at full health--that should be pretty scary.
― call all destroyer, Friday, 30 April 2021 18:55 (three years ago) link
not totally relatedly but the huge drop off in viewership across all sports during the pandemic and the question of how much thats going to bounce back is pretty... interesting
― lag∞n, Friday, 30 April 2021 19:14 (three years ago) link
also will people ever wear non elastic waistband pants again
― lag∞n, Friday, 30 April 2021 19:17 (three years ago) link
no kidding, the nba store always pushes jerseys but maybe they should do a promo on shorts.
the viewership thing is fascinating and no one predicted the dropoff, so i think we're totally in the dark about what happens next.
― call all destroyer, Friday, 30 April 2021 19:19 (three years ago) link
i suspect some people who got out of the habit of watching will just not get back in, from a human nature perspective and so forth
― lag∞n, Friday, 30 April 2021 19:21 (three years ago) link
also i think not having fans was a huge part of it, the fans are key, which was tbf obvious already
― lag∞n, Friday, 30 April 2021 19:22 (three years ago) link
yeah agreed. also saw a survey recently saying that for teens watching tv/movies is like distant last on things they want to do after gaming, streams/youtubes, surfing the net, etc.
basically pandemic took a trend that was slowly happening anyway and put a brick on the gas pedal.
― call all destroyer, Friday, 30 April 2021 19:23 (three years ago) link
teens need to learn about the two screen experience
― lag∞n, Friday, 30 April 2021 19:23 (three years ago) link
this is why Meyers Leonard is the most popular basketball player for teens
― "MVP Love" (Clay), Friday, 30 April 2021 19:30 (three years ago) link
Fewer regular season games would reduce total revenue, which would also hurt player salaries. There are enough players on every roster who aren't paid like the big stars and who are looking at short or uncertain career arcs that I'm not sure the NBAPA as a whole would appreciate a drastically shorter season and lots fewer playoff games, unless all the rookie base salaries and vet minimums stayed at current levels and the supermax players took the biggest hit.
― sharpening the contraindications (Aimless), Friday, 30 April 2021 19:39 (three years ago) link
lag∞n you definitely know more about this than me and you could be right, and i hope you are! i didn’t realise that only a fraction of the games were televised. that does change the equation.i have certainly wondered about whether there is a tipping point with “OTT” services that stream games directly to subscribers - when leagues just decide to take their ball and go home. i don’t see it happening soon but it certainly seems plausible in the future. and at that point ownership can have a much freer hand with these things. subscribers might grumble that they’re only getting 50 games for the same price they paid for 58 the year before but they’re likely to just suck it up.
― One Of The Bad Guys (Tracer Hand), Friday, 30 April 2021 20:03 (three years ago) link
so for accuracy's sake there are actually 2 aspects of the nba tv universe:
- the national tv deals with turner and abc/espn. these are your espn wednesday doubleheaders, tnt thursdays, sat/sun abc games, the playoffs, etc. they're mostly showing prestige games.
- the regional cable channel deals for like fox sports upper midwest or whatever to broadcast every pistons game to the local market.
the *sole* reason this current regular season is as long as it is is that all those regional contracts are set up so that the league needs to have at least 72 games for the contract to be honored. right now these contracts are probably the single biggest obstacle to shortening the season.
for years the RSNs served a purpose of getting the games out to anyone with a cable package, since they're usually bundled into the lower tiers of cable iirc. but obviously streaming and cord cutting are going to disrupt this in the very near future.
― call all destroyer, Friday, 30 April 2021 20:16 (three years ago) link
crazy that you cant just buy a single game on youtube right now
― lag∞n, Friday, 30 April 2021 20:57 (three years ago) link
nbas back baby
The Hornets have moved LaMelo Ball (right wrist fracture) to questionable for Saturday's game against Detroit.— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) April 30, 2021
LeBron James has been upgraded to questionable for tonight’s game against Sacramento.He’s been out since March 20 with a high ankle sprain.— Mike Trudell (@LakersReporter) April 30, 2021
― lag∞n, Friday, 30 April 2021 21:02 (three years ago) link
just yesterday i had to google what lebron's injury was bc i'd forgotten, 5 weeks is a long time for an ankle sprain!
― "MVP Love" (Clay), Friday, 30 April 2021 21:05 (three years ago) link
tbf it was of the infamous high variety
― lag∞n, Friday, 30 April 2021 21:06 (three years ago) link
i suspect some people who got out of the habit of watching will just not get back in, from a human nature perspective and so forth― lag∞n, Friday, April 30, 2021 3:21 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink
― lag∞n, Friday, April 30, 2021 3:21 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink
― ciderpress, Friday, 30 April 2021 21:20 (three years ago) link
but even if your max possible audience has decreased theres still a lot you can do to make sure youre hitting that max
― ciderpress, Friday, 30 April 2021 21:24 (three years ago) link
2. the idea that the owners are super micro focused on the bottom line is imo pretty clearly not true, these are play things for super rich guys, you can see that in the warriors paying a $100m in luxury tax for kelly oubre or whatever it was, nba teams arent really good business investments, except... for the resale values have been spiking the last however many years, which idk its tough to forecast how far that will go and what exactly is driving it, i dont think its gate revenue, tho having a league with increasing interest that seems —hot— couldnt hurt
one one hand you have lacob, on the other you have fertitta
― i was too much listening to your accent (Spottie), Friday, 30 April 2021 21:31 (three years ago) link
3. the resting/injury issue is already acknowledged, theyve done what they can to eliminate back to backs, and are fining teams for resting guys on national games which is obvs just a pr thing to get teams to make up fake injuries so the fans dont get pissed off which is ridiculous but anyway the problem is well accepted already
one counter would be that if you shorten the season then the injuries will knock guys out longer. a famous high ankle sprain may now eat up like 1/3 of your season where in the normal 82 it eats up only 1/4 or less. of course do the math and you should have less injuries cos less games, but injuries happen no matter what.
― i was too much listening to your accent (Spottie), Friday, 30 April 2021 21:35 (three years ago) link
― call all destroyer, Friday, April 30, 2021 11:55 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink
yikes
― i was too much listening to your accent (Spottie), Friday, 30 April 2021 21:36 (three years ago) link
some anecdotal evidence from hanging out with (+ arguing/debating) my 15-25 y/o nephews/cousins is that they really dont watch full reg season games, like at all. they might tune into a big matchup here or there but if lebron isnt playing or whatever then they wont watch. they just scroll the socials and follow the B/R and highlight aggregators and get their hoops fix that way... snippets and individual game stats. also all of them are AZ natives and none of them care about the suns, they just follow lebron or kyrie or whatever.
― i was too much listening to your accent (Spottie), Friday, 30 April 2021 21:43 (three years ago) link
I have a theory that a sort of "meta sports fandom" has emerged, basically people who are engaged with following a sports -- could include listening to sports talk radio or podcasts, watching ESPN, following it on Twitter or IG -- but not actually *watching* sports
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 30 April 2021 21:43 (three years ago) link
i was writing that when spottie posted jinx
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 30 April 2021 21:44 (three years ago) link
def
― i was too much listening to your accent (Spottie), Friday, 30 April 2021 21:44 (three years ago) link
yeah that’s basically how i keep tabs on the patriots and sox. i’m sure as shit not actually watching a baseball game.
― call all destroyer, Friday, 30 April 2021 21:47 (three years ago) link
its nearly impossible to watch a baseball game. even if you record and ffwd its still easily two hours of your time. i can get through a hoops game in 45 minutes.
― i was too much listening to your accent (Spottie), Friday, 30 April 2021 21:49 (three years ago) link
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, April 30, 2021 5:44 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
haa
― lag∞n, Friday, 30 April 2021 21:52 (three years ago) link
― One Of The Bad Guys (Tracer Hand), Friday, 30 April 2021 22:14 (three years ago) link
it's prob also easier to rack up the social media points if you're not bogged down in the flow of a single game but are instead posting micheal scott reaction gifs to a dozen clips an hour
― "MVP Love" (Clay), Friday, 30 April 2021 22:24 (three years ago) link
what
13-year NBA veteran Anderson Varejao plans to sign with the Cleveland Cavaliers for the remainder of the season, sources tell @TheAthletic @Stadium. Varejao is returning to the franchise with which he’s spent 12 decorated years.— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) April 30, 2021
― lag∞n, Friday, 30 April 2021 23:25 (three years ago) link
what? aren't there like 2 weeks left in the season?
― call all destroyer, Friday, 30 April 2021 23:39 (three years ago) link
makes sense, cavs are only 7 games back on the last play-in spot and he’s only been completely out of the league for 4 years
― "MVP Love" (Clay), Friday, 30 April 2021 23:45 (three years ago) link
they want him to retire there prob?
― i was too much listening to your accent (Spottie), Saturday, 1 May 2021 00:05 (three years ago) link
prob join the coaching squad or something after this season
― i was too much listening to your accent (Spottie), Saturday, 1 May 2021 00:06 (three years ago) link
why are the celtics down 20 in the first q
they decided that only tatum was allowed to score and the maximum number of points was 12
― lag∞n, Saturday, 1 May 2021 00:15 (three years ago) link
looks like the spurs havent missed a single shot yet as well
― i was too much listening to your accent (Spottie), Saturday, 1 May 2021 00:33 (three years ago) link
😬
The boos in here are not quiet.— Jay King (@ByJayKing) May 1, 2021
― lag∞n, Saturday, 1 May 2021 00:44 (three years ago) link
They were down 30 now tied. Nice comeback
― i was too much listening to your accent (Spottie), Saturday, 1 May 2021 02:03 (three years ago) link
ah tatum good look to win at the buzzer, ot
― lag∞n, Saturday, 1 May 2021 02:04 (three years ago) link
nesmith is good now i guess
― lag∞n, Saturday, 1 May 2021 02:06 (three years ago) link
bards played the same lineup for a half an hour straight tho idk wouldve been better to hit that shot
― lag∞n, Saturday, 1 May 2021 02:07 (three years ago) link
This is a great game
― i was too much listening to your accent (Spottie), Saturday, 1 May 2021 02:15 (three years ago) link
No foul
― i was too much listening to your accent (Spottie), Saturday, 1 May 2021 02:16 (three years ago) link
man it would be so fuckin impressive of the Celtics to come back here
― frogbs, Saturday, 1 May 2021 02:18 (three years ago) link
Just massive shots back and forth love it
― i was too much listening to your accent (Spottie), Saturday, 1 May 2021 02:18 (three years ago) link