It is an early Christmas gift for basketball fans, the NBA plans to start the 2020-2021 season on December 22.
On Thursday, the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) voted to approve the league’s December 22 start proposal.
The NBA had suggest beginning the new season before Christmas, so they will be able to take advantage of Christmas revenue. The 2020-2021 NBA season will consist of 72 games and will be expected to conclude before the start of the Tokyo Olympics.
There are other issues that will have to be resolved before the start of the season, including the salary cap, luxury taxes and the start of free agency. These issues are to be resolved by team owners and the NBPA in negotiations.
The time between the conclusion of the 2019-2020 season and the start of the 2020-2021 season is just 71 days. That is a new record and is the shortest number of days between the ending and start of a new sports season. There are real logistics reasons behind the start happening in early December.
The coronavirus pandemic has severely impacted sports because of no fans attending games that resulted in financial losses across all major sports. In an attempt to alleviate this, the league wanted an early December start of the next season. Doing so will allow the NBA to use the holiday week of Christmas as a means to earn more revenue. Historically, Christmas games have brought the NBA more revenue than normal televised games. It is expected that a televised Christmas game will bring the league an extra $500 million in TV revenue, limited ticket sales and sponsorships. This will be big due to the expected decreased in revenues as limited fan attendance to games will continue as the pandemic drags on.
Furthermore, an early start of the season will allow the NBA to get back to the regular schedule of ending their season by June. It allows them to avoid other sports competitions that leads to a decrease in TV viewers. It also permits them to let staff and players have summer off and allow them to avoid playing the same time after the Tokyo Olympics starts.
