Why is the new NBA season starting so soon after the last one? - Marketplace

tampilansberita.blogspot.com

It’s been just over a month since the NBA’s “bubble” season ended, but another professional basketball season is set to tip off in December.

It will be a truncated campaign — and in some markets, teams will actually get to play in front of fans. So what are the economic arguments behind the league’s scheduling?

Right now, the NBA is going through the same bad business climate as a lot of other businesses, said Kenneth Shropshire, CEO of the Global Sport Institute and professor of global sport at Arizona State University.

“There is a major concern about making sure revenues flow at a level where you can maintain salaries at the same level,” he said.

The NBA is getting its new season started when more people are spending time at home — and other sports are in their off-seasons.

“The NBA’s calculation may be to sort of take advantage of that and provide an earlier start, so they can capitalize a little bit on the demand due to winter and an indoor activity being more in demand,” said Raghu Kodige, founder and CPO at TV data company Alphonso.

The NBA relies on all of the ad money it brings in on Christmas Day. The league has invested a lot in selling Christmas as basketball’s holiday, the way Thanksgiving is for football, said Courtney Cox, assistant professor at the University of Oregon.

“The maintenance of that kind of hoops holiday is really important,” she said.

The money made by starting in late December could add anywhere from $500 million to $1 billion to the NBA’s bottom line.

This new season will also cost the NBA hundreds of millions less to put on, because the teams won’t play in a bubble. And some may end up playing in front of crowds.

That poses some risks for the league, said David Berri, a sports economist at Southern Utah University.

“We’re probably going to see outcomes like the NFL where you’re going to see games canceled [and] games postponed,” he said.

And that would be bad for ad revenue.

Stories You Might Like

Are states ready to roll out COVID-19 vaccines?

Claire Hannan, executive director of the nonprofit Association of Immunization Managers, which represents state health officials, said states have been making good progress in their preparations. And we could have several vaccines pretty soon. But states still need more funding, she said. Hannan doesn’t think a lack of additional funding would hold up distribution initially, but it could cause problems down the road. “It’s really worrisome that Congress may not pass funding or that there’s information circulating saying that states don’t need additional funding,” she said.

How is the service industry dealing with the return of coronavirus restrictions?

Without another round of something like the Paycheck Protection Program, which kept a lot of businesses afloat during the pandemic’s early stages, the outlook is bleak for places like restaurants. Some in the San Francisco Bay Area, for example, only got one week of indoor dining back before cases rose and restrictions went back into effect. Restaurant owners are revamping their business models in an effort to survive while waiting to see if they’ll be able to get more aid.

How are hospitals handling the nationwide surge in COVID-19 cases?

As the pandemic surges and more medical professionals themselves are coming down with COVID, nearly 1 in 5 hospitals in the country report having a critical shortage of staff, according to data from the Department of Health and Human Services. One of the knock-on effects of staff shortages is that people who have other medical needs are being asked to wait.