The problem is that you have Boston and New York occupying the early time slots every night this round. That’s the thing….you can’t have it both ways. I don’t know why there have been 8 est starts on some nights but none of us see the data showing why. We’d have to go back to compare each weeknight 7p/9:40p start time numbers w the 8p/10:40p numbers.
I think staggered starts are the solution, especially in a sport like the NBA. It makes sense in the NFL where you want to watch games from start to finish. But if I miss the first half of an NBA game, it's less of a big deal, since so many games are close. Some overlap is ok, so long as we don't have dueling 4th quarters. So a 7pm / 830 approach could work, at least that way the late game ends around a more reasonable 11pm.
De rigeur for all nationally televised Celtics games: NBA league pass, listen to game using local radio feed, use DVR (or whatever) to sync cable signal to internet radio (can be off by a minute).
From a numbers perspective how is this ok when majority of NBA fans can only watch one at a time? You are actively giving up viewership this way.
Are you though? The neutral fans on the east cost are going to watch from say 7 to 11. It's not like the fans out in MT or WC are tuning in at 4-5pm to watch the Knicks series. They're probably watching the 4th quarter when they get home or whatever. I think if you assume that we only have a finite number of hours to watch, then it doesn't really matter. Playing a later 2nd game will definitely add overall eyeballs from 11-12 because some people will stay up, but it also means that a lot of fans will go to bed and miss the end of those games. So yes there will be somewhat less viewers because you lose that last hour, but at the detriment of fans being able to watch the ends of those games, which could hurt in the long run.
Rest of the announce playoff schedule is:
If you have a west coast team, an 8:30 ET start means you're making the game tip off at ~5:30pm local. Nobody will be in their seats by then. At least a 6:30pm-local tipoff has a hope of having a full arena and also a conclusion time within reach for most east coast viewers.
My guess - and this is just a guess - is that the Powers To Be wanted NYK on at 8:00 p.m. to maximize Knick fans. Thus pushing DEN back, which is fine for DEN's fan base in their time zones.
TNT has some fees without announcers. TNT Overtime I believe it's called.
Your last sentence is crucial here. The suits are caring about the immediate results of their scheduling….they don’t care about down the road and if it can have an impact. The other thing is that we are not factoring in how many viewers are from outside of the country where the time a game is schedule doesn’t really matter as much.
It turns out that being able to impact the game when your jumper isn't falling is really important, after all.
The tone of this thread is borderline arrogant.
How about that! Conley being out must of been a factor last night. TWolves really had no answer on offense at all, Edwards was doubled quite often and struggled to generate any momentum. Slo-Mo was also comically bad, I really can't believe they had no one better to run out there.
Generating offense when you're doubled is really hard and valuable. 22 year-old Tatum was much worse at it than 26 year-old Tatum. Ant will improve a ton at this over the years, but this is why he and young Tatum both caused overreactions: EVERYONE looks like a superstar when the stepback 3s/middies are falling at crazy clips.
First of all, if we’re focusing on the fanbases of the teams involved in the game, how about the Minnesota fans whose game didn’t start until 9:30 local time and finished after midnight? This game was between a Mountain time zone team and a Central time zone team, why is this being broadcast as late as if this were two west coast teams?
Plus, all of the weekday games are still at night. It's not like baseball where they are playing playoff games at 1pm on a Thursday. 5 or 6pm local is too early? Boo hoo.
Of course everyone is viewing through their own lens. And folks don't want their team's games starting while they're still sitting in traffic on the way home from work. But if you're the NBA, your current and future consumer base is not evenly distributed among time zones. Nobody is worried, for example, about optimizing Alaska viewership because nobody lives there. Making games too late for east coast folks is eliminating a huge chunk of your audience. It's just numbers.
Yeah, terrified of Jokic. One thing that I just noticed is how often he can play off the wrong foot. That, combined with his ability to score with both hands and the way he spins around and fakes, makes him impossible to time up as a defender.
I agree, this is a real challenge for all great players in the league. Good bet he'll improve quite a bit given his age, but at least last night, it was a real struggle. Doesn't seem like he's catching much heat for that.
He does this every 4Q when Denver has a lead, then once he corrals it the 5-second count begins so he holds it for another 4 seconds. He takes 2-4 full possessions off the clock every game they are protecting the lead.
Now that this is being brought to the forefront there will be some change made in the offseason. For now, I wouldn’t be surprised if a memo went out instructing the officials to be prepared for this and immediately retrieve the ball to start the 5-count…..or one brave soul will whistle a delay of game.
Even less if the new rule would only apply to the 4th quarter. No one really cares about running the clock down before then.
Jokic and the Celtics both understand the extreme value of shortening the 4Q when you have a lead. The math is inexorable.
Good point.
Honestly, that's the best thing about being a fan of an east coast team living on the west coast. Granted, I don't have kids and have a flexible schedule, but having Cs home games start at 430 is amazing.
I especially enjoy letting the game finish, and then watching the replay with no commercials, all well before bedtime.
Speaking as someone on the west coast who has two small kids and roots for a team on the east coast, it fucking sucks having to watch my team while navigating work, after school activities, dinner and bed times. I feel for east coasters who have to stay up past midnight to watch all the games, I really do, but given the choice between sacrificing familial or work obligations and having to lose some sleep, I'm taking the latter 100% of the time. Being on the west coast is great for football (being able to roll out of bed and watch games almost immediately is wonderful, plus still having Sunday nights' free), but weekday afternoon/evening playoff games are really rough if I want to watch them live.
it was a full-on overpay at the time, & hasn't moved the needle for the exorbitant cost IMO.
Similar situation....but I just watch it on replay? If you have the nba.com subscription, they post the stream roughly 3 hours after start time, so you can just watch at 7:30pm or so, with no timeout breaks.
a conversation about growing the game that doesn't consider the impacts on fanbases of the teams playing the games... is not borderline arrogant?
For someone who claims to only care about the actual fan bases involved in the game, I’m still waiting to hear how a 9:30 pm start time on a Tuesday makes sense for Minnesota fans. I’ll hang up and listen.
The flip side is someone who works 9-5, commutes home, deals w kid, dinner, etc now gets settled in at 6:30….and the game is over. It’s never going to work perfect for everyone.
It makes no sense. I live in Minnesota and half the people I would text with about games were in bed at half time
