[VIDEO] Adam Silver on Changing the Regular Season Length

[Meticode]

https://youtu.be/8PSOuVBxvwY?si=Tk3m0FM5TIeqike2

[Meticode]

In one hand it would affect records. In the other hand November to January in the NBA is dead AF and almost no one cares about those games.

[ArbitraryWater]

Did they mention the number 58?

[Meticode]

Did they mention the number 58?

The only number he mentioned was 72, and he said he's not there yet on going that route, but nothing is off the table.

[Baller234]

I wouldn't really focus so much on how it effects the record books. Those lost validity a long time ago. This is the same league that adopted a 3 point shot after 33 years of existence.

I'm okay with 66 games. Every team plays each other twice, division rivals four times.

[ArbitraryWater]

The only number he mentioned was 72, and he said he's not there yet on going that route, but nothing is off the table.

72 is not changing too much imo. Do 58 or 66. 58 imo is perfect.

[Meticode]

I would 100% be in favor of a shorter season as long as we can get rid of the load management shit. If players aren't legit injured and can go, they should be playing those games, but I get the feeling they'd play even less games then. So instead of players going for 65 games, they'll go for 50 or something.

[SouBeachTalents]

Agreed with AW 58 is the perfect number, you play every team twice. 66 would be an improvement so I'd take it, 72 really isn't moving the needle enough to bother implementing it. I would also start the season either Christmas Day or mid February right after football season ends.

Oh, and get rid of that stupid fvcking midseason tournament :lol

[RRR3]

He inherited a product that was fine and he can’t stop attempting to tinker it with despite failing spectacularly and embarrassing himself like the dumbass he is every time he does this. While it’s good he has empowered players more outside of that he’s been truly atrocious as a commissioner.

[Baller234]

Another thing they need to consider is to claim days like Football has.

NCAAF owns Saturday
NFL owns Sunday, Monday... and now Thursday.

The NBA should shoot for 2 games a week. Maybe Tuesday and Friday? Have those be the big gamedays? Then maybe after NFL is over you can go nuts and add Sunday triple headers?

[Norcaliblunt]

Weird world we live in when so called fans of something want less of it.

Catering to casuals is never a good idea for any business or product. All it does is water it down
and alienate the hardcore customers who’ve been supporting you through thick and thin.

With our ADD society 82 games will become 72 then 66 then 58 and it will never end until eventually basketball is just like boxing or MMA and superstars will only play 3 times a year for huge paydays.

Appreciate the marathon season and the athletic / mental endurance it takes to accomplish or watch less basketball and enjoy fresh players play once a week, once a month on pay per view.

[Meticode]

He inherited a product that was fine and he can’t stop attempting to tinker it with despite failing spectacularly and embarrassing himself like the dumbass he is every time he does this. While it’s good he has empowered players more outside of that he’s been truly atrocious as a commissioner.

That's debatable that the product was fine. Viewership is nearly half of what it was in the 90s when the NBA was on NBC. After it went to ABC in 2002 they lost viewership immediately. And every year since the 2011 lockout season they've slowly lost viewership consistently minus a few spikes here and there (ie: 2016 Finals with GSvsCle).

I think he has to try to tinker to keep viewership from going down even further, but I do think he makes the wrong choices at times. The All-Star game is a big example of, "What the hell are they thinking?"

[Hey Yo]

In one hand it would affect records. In the other hand November to January in the NBA is dead AF and almost no one cares about those games.

NBA Cup

[Meticode]

NBA Cup

Even with the NBA Cup it's still dead AF. The NBA has marginal increases during the rounds, and the only decent increase of viewership is during the knockout games. When we look back on this in 10-20 years no one is going to be comparing players accolades and including NBA Cup trophies.

[Norcaliblunt]

I don’t understand where this idea that no one cares about first 2 - 3 months of the season comes from?

Ratings from casual viewers? Who gives a **** if casual mofos are watching?

The problem with the NBA is all the fans have become armchair GM’s and business marketing experts who care more about the ratings, CBA, contracts, salary caps, aprons, media created story lines, yada yada yada than actual basketball.

[Wally450]

Why are we shortening the season?

[ArbitraryWater]

Why are we shortening the season?

Cause its way too long? By far the longest season in sports lmao. It drags on and on and ratings are down and players coast.

[rawimpact]

The NBA players now inherited a all time best in medical conditioning, health, physicians etc. Their overall health and longetivity has far extended the previous eras that too had to gruel through the 82 games.

The fact that the NBA is even entertaining this is dumb. If they wanted to shorten the season, it should be to create more teams, not because of what the players are seeking. Can't pay these players astronautical numbers and also significantly reduce their screen time that pays the bills.

[Meticode]

I don’t understand where this idea that no one cares about first 2 - 3 months of the season comes from?

Ratings from casual viewers? Who gives a **** if casual mofos are watching?


Less viewership means less money. Less money means the league struggles and less sponsorships and ads. Eventually you'll be the WNBA. The WNBA can't get off and be on it's own because no one watches the games.

I'm not saying the NBA is going to turn in the WNBA. I'm just giving an example of why viewership and casual fans are important. If you get rid of the casual fans the league probably wouldn't exist.

[Meticode]

Cause its way too long? By far the longest season in sports lmao. It drags on and on and ratings are down and players coast.

I would argue the MLB drags on worse. After April no one really cares about baseball until September when the playoff races get tighter. The NBA puts in 82 games between mid October until mid April. That's about 82 games in 6 months total time. Plus the playoffs. The MLB starts around early April until late September, so about 6 months. The MLB regular season lasts 187 days. That's 162 games in roughly 187 days.

The NHL is the same format as the NBA. 82 games from October until April.

[SouBeachTalents]

Weird world we live in when so called fans of something want less of it.

Catering to casuals is never a good idea for any business or product. All it does is water it down
and alienate the hardcore customers who’ve been supporting you through thick and thin.

With our ADD society 82 games will become 72 then 66 then 58 and it will never end until eventually basketball is just like boxing or MMA and superstars will only play 3 times a year for huge paydays.

Appreciate the marathon season and the athletic / mental endurance it takes to accomplish or watch less basketball and enjoy fresh players play once a week, once a month on pay per view.
Yeah, weird world where we would rather have each game carry more significance than watch a game in November that ultimately doesn't mean anything. By your rationale the NBA should extend the season to 100 games, fans would only want more of the product.

NFL fans should want a 25 game season too, more product baby.

[BarberSchool]

72 being a multiple of 18 will make all the superstitious Jewish owners support it much much more than you would think, given that they’ll be seeing 10 less games of revenue.

Watch.

[Nowoco]

Why are we shortening the season?

Because it's too long, too boring and a complete waste of time. Have you been in a coma for 10 years?

I say the same thing in every Adam Silver thread. He's the worst commissioner in the history of sports and has been a total disaster for the NBA.

[Meticode]

He's the worst commissioner in the history of sports and has been a total disaster for the NBA.

Rob Manfred takes that title for me. That's not to say Silver isn't bad because he definitely is. Manfred is on a whole other level above Silver though.

[Wally450]

Because it's too long, too boring and a complete waste of time. Have you been in a coma for 10 years?

I say the same thing in every Adam Silver thread. He's the worst commissioner in the history of sports and has been a total disaster for the NBA.

Seems more like an Adam Silver problem than an NBA problem. It was 82 games before Silver with no problem.

You can also attribute the problem to shorter attention spans for the average person nowadays.

[Meticode]

Seems more like an Adam Silver problem than an NBA problem. It was 82 games before Silver with no problem.

You can also attribute the problem to shorter attention spans for the average person nowadays.

Whatever the reason the NBA has to adapt. Otherwise it risks losing money.

[ImKobe]

I don't see how shortening the season by 10 games or whatever is going to make the early part of the season that much more interesting for it to be worth it to the league. People are still gonna care less about the first half of the season, and injuries for the most part don't happen due to fatigue but freak accidents such as the ones we just saw with Tatum and Butler.

It's about time they meddled with the rules a bit to allow more defense in the Regular Season to try to reduce the 3PT spamming so we have less blowouts and better overall quality of play in terms of shot creation.

[Meticode]

I don't see how shortening the season by 10 games or whatever is going to make the early part of the season that much more interesting for it to be worth it to the league. People are still gonna care less about the first half of the season, and injuries for the most part don't happen due to fatigue but freak accidents such as the ones we just saw with Tatum and Butler.

It's about time they meddled with the rules a bit to allow more defense in the Regular Season to try to reduce the 3PT spamming so we have less blowouts and better overall quality of play in terms of shot creation.

Do you think having the NBA start and play on during the NFL season until February takes views away from the NBA?

[ImKobe]

Do you think having the NBA start and play on during the NFL season until February takes views away from the NBA?

The weekend games definitely are negatively affected, but is it worth to just cut them out? I'm not an expert on that. I think one of the reasons the NFL does better is because there's a lot of close games in the 4th quarter so more people are invested in the game.

[Nowoco]

You can also attribute the problem to shorter attention spans for the average person nowadays.

That's correct but it is a huge problem. People don't want to sit down for 2.5 hours in November to watch a meaningless NBA regular season game when the NFL season, where every game matters, is rolling.

The NBA needs to move with the times. The 82 game season is an antiquated relic from a bygone era. The players and fans don't want it. No stupid gimmick is going to change that. Have any of the ASG gimmicks saved that from being the biggest pile of bullshit in sport? No. The only solution is lower the amount of games. We saw in the last few weeks of the season people taking an interest because playoff seedings were so close. It needs to be like that every season. Or the ratings will continue to nosedive under that incompetent fool Silver.

[SouBeachTalents]

The weekend games definitely are negatively affected, but is it worth to just cut them out? I'm not an expert on that. I think one of the reasons the NFL does better is because there's a lot of close games in the 4th quarter so more people are invested in the game.
It's absolutely because the average NFL game has significantly more at stake than the average NBA one. I'm not disputing that even if the schedules were the same, the NFL still wouldn't beat the NBA in ratings because football is more popular here, but the disparity in ratings between the two leagues imo is almost entirely attributed to how long each leagues schedule is. I guarantee if you flipped it the NBA would be getting really big ratings for a 17 game season.

[Meticode]

The weekend games definitely are negatively affected, but is it worth to just cut them out? I'm not an expert on that. I think one of the reasons the NFL does better is because there's a lot of close games in the 4th quarter so more people are invested in the game.

Someone's idea was to shift the start of the season either to Christmas or right after/before the Superbowl. Although then you run the risk of competing with the MLB. I don't know if that's worse or better because they have games every day of the week.

[SouBeachTalents]

Someone's idea was to shift the start of the season either to Christmas or right after/before the Superbowl. Although then you run the risk of competing with the MLB. I don't know if that's worse or better because they have games every day of the week.
You're really asking which league poses a bigger threat ratings wise?

That's fvcking crazy :lol

[warriorfan]

You're really asking which league poses a bigger threat ratings wise?

That's fvcking crazy :lol

I think our brotha had a stroke or something recently. His posting hasn’t been making any sense at all :lol

[Nowoco]

It isnt the number of games as much as the length of the season. Well it's both but the length is a worse problem. Say a team starts 15-2. Great, your team is killing it. But wait, there is 5 months before a game that matters. You can't keep up high levels of excitement and interest for 6 months. Not anymore.

The NFL is a 4 month bloodbath. Every game matters. 100mph intensity for the whole season. Excitement and interest only snowballs week by week.

Another problem I've seen mentioned is NBA scheduling. You have to constantly check the schedule to know when your team is playing. Could be Monday then Wednesday, or a back to back from Sunday. Its hard to plan watching games when they keep moving around all over the place. Most weeks in the NFL, your team plays Sunday but its nearly always at the weekend. Most people don't work weekends and its easier to watch with the family at convenient times.

It's not helped by how much better the playoffs are than regular season games and that gap increases by the season.

[Meticode]

I think our brotha had a stroke or something recently. His posting hasn’t been making any sense at all :lol

That wasn't my idea. It was someone else's posted previously in this very thread.

[ArbitraryWater]

Weird world we live in when so called fans of something want less of it.

Catering to casuals is never a good idea for any business or product. All it does is water it down
and alienate the hardcore customers who’ve been supporting you through thick and thin.

With our ADD society 82 games will become 72 then 66 then 58 and it will never end until eventually basketball is just like boxing or MMA and superstars will only play 3 times a year for huge paydays.

Appreciate the marathon season and the athletic / mental endurance it takes to accomplish or watch less basketball and enjoy fresh players play once a week, once a month on pay per view.


So weird how people want there to be meaning.

[BarberSchool]

That's correct but it is a huge problem. People don't want to sit down for 2.5 hours in November to watch a meaningless NBA regular season game when the NFL season, where every game matters, is rolling.

The NBA needs to move with the times. The 82 game season is an antiquated relic from a bygone era. The players and fans don't want it. No stupid gimmick is going to change that. Have any of the ASG gimmicks saved that from being the biggest pile of bullshit in sport? No. The only solution is lower the amount of games. We saw in the last few weeks of the season people taking an interest because playoff seedings were so close. It needs to be like that every season. Or the ratings will continue to nosedive under that incompetent fool Silver.

The stewardship of MANY modern sports league commissioners has been similar to how sometimes one prescription can spiral into an exponential pile of pills. Many of them only to treat a side effect of an earlier prescription.

One tweak doesn’t work, so instead of reverting to the previous standard, and leaving sh!t alone… …they make yet another change, then when that doesn’t work, they make another change, and another.

All this tampering has been essentially avoidant of the real causes of low ratings and low engagement. Inferior product.

Silver and his ilk, borrow from their corporate brethren, with the idea of INSTEAD of producing the highest quality product possible, they merely repackage or rebrand the same crap, or waste tons of money making terribly detached, tone-deaf advertisements in hopes that solves the problem.

It’s gross to watch all this transpire.
It’s insulting. Disrespectful to the fans.

They could literally just concede idiocy.
Return to the John Tesh NBA on NBC anthem.
Return to an NBA INSIDE STUFF type weekly highlight shows with engaging interviews. On NBA TV maybe.
Minimum 8 contestants in the dunk contest. WTF is 4 contestants ???
West vs East all star game.
Simple.
Just return to the classics.
Stop trying to re-invent the wheel.
Embrace tradition lol

[BarberSchool]

Catering to casuals is never a good idea for any business or product. All it does is water it down and alienate the hardcore customers who’ve been supporting you through thick and thin.Couldnt possibly agree more with this.

[Naero]

In one hand it would affect records. In the other hand November to January in the NBA is dead AF and almost no one cares about those games.

That's the only major drawback to me. Most accumulative records will become practically unbreakable, and we'll have to recontextualize them all. That's just a First World problem for me, though, as a fan who loves witnessing historical milestones.

Would definitely be worth it overall to enrich the regular-season experience. Haven't had time to watch the video yet; but I'd be shocked if a sellout league like the NBA ever did this, especially now that they've globalized their audience. I could definitely see this bolstering the demand for in-game tickets, but could that offset the total revenue they'd lose from TV viewership (even though it would generate more interest in the games)?

[Meticode]

That's the only major drawback to me. Most accumulative records will become practically unbreakable, and we'll have to recontextualize them all. That's just a First World problem for me, though, as a fan who loves witnessing historical milestones.

Would definitely be worth it overall to enrich the regular-season experience. Haven't had time to watch the video yet; but I'd be shocked if a sellout league like the NBA ever did this, especially now that they've globalized their audience. I could definitely see this bolstering the demand for in-game tickets, but no way would that offset the money they lose from TV viewership.

I agree. The records will have to asterisks 82 and 66 game era, or whatever. A whole new record bracket would be needed.

[Im Still Ballin]

The season isn't being shortened. And even if it did it wouldn't get rid of load management.

[TMac&Luther]

If you're not growing, you're dying.. NFL is trying to expand their regular season while the NBA is trying to shorten theirs.. tells me everything I need to know about these leagues.

[Meticode]

If you're not growing, you're dying.. NFL is trying to expand their regular season while the NBA is trying to shorten theirs.. tells me everything I need to know about these leagues.

NBA actually lengthened their season. Two seasons ago.

[bdonovan]

MLB needs this far more. 162 games per season is ridiculous. Even if it's just baseball and a lot less physical effort is needed. It's too long, too boring.

82 games seems reasonable. A big step up from 30 or so in college. They're doing load management and all- seems enough.

[Meticode]

MLB needs this far more. 162 games per season is ridiculous. Even if it's just baseball and a lot less physical effort is needed. It's too long, too boring.

82 games seems reasonable. A big step up from 30 or so in college. They're doing load management and all- seems enough.

Baseball used to be my favorite sport when I was a teenager. I grew up in a great baseball city (Cincinnati). But looking back I remember being excited for opening day, and that first week of play, then after that I didn't care about it the rest of season (not even September because we sucked so bad we almost never made the playoffs).

[fsvr54]

I'm not really on board with it. 58 is cutting it way too much. Just eliminate back to backs IMO...that should be about 10ish games anyways.

[Meticode]

I'm not really on board with it. 58 is cutting it way too much. Just eliminate back to backs IMO...that should be about 10ish games anyways.

Problem with this is you don't play all teams equally in games. Some teams either in the conference or outside it will get less games than others.

[L.Kizzle]

Shortening the NBA season is dumb. Really nothing else to be said.
It was 82 games back when it was 20 teams.

[bdonovan]

Baseball used to be my favorite sport when I was a teenager. I grew up in a great baseball city (Cincinnati). But looking back I remember being excited for opening day, and that first week of play, then after that I didn't care about it the rest of season (not even September because we sucked so bad we almost never made the playoffs).

As a lifelong Mets fan, I concur.

The only period I had time for it when I was growing up and had all the time in the world. They need to keep up with the times. I would consider 6 innings instead of 9 as well (when I played in HS, I believe it was 6 or 7). Every inning would count then.

At least they're enforcing the pitch clock and batter clock. Reduced game length by half an hour. Still like 2 and a half hours per game.

[ArbitraryWater]

Shortening the NBA season is dumb. Really nothing else to be said.
It was 82 games back when it was 20 teams.

An argument would be nice

[Wally450]

Shortening the NBA season is dumb. Really nothing else to be said.
It was 82 games back when it was 20 teams.

:applause:

[90sgoat]

The regular season is meaningless now, no one wants to watch a random game.

Shorten it, make it competitive. Less guaranteed contracts.

[SouBeachTalents]

The regular season is meaningless now, no one wants to watch a random game.

Shorten it, make it competitive. Less guaranteed contracts.
It blows my mind how anyone could look at the current regular season and think it's a good product :lol It's sucked for years now, but I guess watching games that don't have any stakes until March is appealing to some people.

[999Guy]

Alright I’m really starting to get annoyed with the changing the league.

82 is fine. Historically guys played more minutes.

Injuries are because of the strenuous pre-NBA careers, through AAU as a child into HS/college. Guys are getting serious miles at age 14. Then joining the NBA and a lot of them train in the off-season and some play in the Olympics or FIBA.

Jerry West and Wilt Chamberlain actually took the summer off.

This is a bad idea that weakens the sport. And it still won’t fix load management.

[999Guy]

It blows my mind how anyone could look at the current regular season and think it's a good product :lol It's sucked for years now, but I guess watching games that don't have any stakes until March is appealing to some people.

What does it mean to not have stakes?

Teams have to be threatened with immediate elimination to have stakes?

The teams lose and win after every game. That’s at stake. You can’t get more significant than that in any sport.

[LAL]

He inherited a product that was fine and he can’t stop attempting to tinker it with despite failing spectacularly and embarrassing himself like the dumbass he is every time he does this. While it’s good he has empowered players more outside of that he’s been truly atrocious as a commissioner.

Besides the empowering bs i definitely agree with this little bitch right here

[SouBeachTalents]

What does it mean to not have stakes?

Teams have to be threatened with immediate elimination to have stakes?

The teams lose and win after every game. That’s at stake. You can’t get more significant than that in any sport.
Literally every competition, even tee ball or youth soccer, has teams that win and lose after every game. I'm sure we'll disagree, many in the thread have, but 1 game of an 82 game season simply does not matter in the grand scheme of things, esp when it's occurring 5 months before the season ends.

82 game seasons maybe used to make sense when they implemented this schedule back in the 1960's, but today, with the endless amount of entertainment options available, the vast majority of people, even basketball fans, are not going to be inclined to watch 2.5-3 hours of a statistically meaningless contest. You tack on load management, endless commercials and replay fvcking up the flow of the game, at least shorten the season up.

I personally would enjoy the regular season a lot more if it were shorter, and I genuinely believe it would attract more viewers as well.

[Baller234]

That's the only major drawback to me. Most accumulative records will become practically unbreakable, and we'll have to recontextualize them all. That's just a First World problem for me, though, as a fan who loves witnessing historical milestones.

Well the league just celebrated Lebron breaking the "scoring record" even though they literally had to invent a shot worth more points for him to have a chance.

[L.Kizzle]

An argument would be nice
Number or games per season

82 games | 66-67 (10 teams) to present (30 teams)
79 games | 60-61 (8 teams) to 65-66 (9 teams)
75 games | 59-60 (8 teams)
72 games | 58-59 (8 teams)
70 games | 52-53 (10 teams) to 57-58 (8 teams)
66 games | 51-52 (10 teams)
69-66 games | 50-51 (11 teams)
68 games | 49-50 (17 teams)
60 games | 48-49 (12 teams) BAA
48 games | 47-48 (8 teams) BAA
60 games | 46-47 (11 teams) BAA


I've seen 58 games, 66 and 72 games mentioned.
League played under 58 games once way back in 1948 when it was still called the BAA.
So, basically the league would be going backwards by decreasing games.
"We done wit the 90s" huh. 90s and before players would never.

[ILLsmak]

https://youtu.be/8PSOuVBxvwY?si=Tk3m0FM5TIeqike2

Man, that is a tough thumbnail haha. I lost motivation to even watch the video.

-Smak

[Meticode]

Man, that is a tough thumbnail haha. I lost motivation to even watch the video.

-Smak

What a handsome Jew he was with hair.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Gj7FgH2aAAA3Jaz.jpg