Picture this. It's almost 10 a.m. ET. You've just poured yourself a bowl of cereal, you walk over to the couch, plop right down, turn on the TV and start checking out a live NBA game. Does this all just sound too good to be true? Well, maybe it is... or, maybe it could become a reality. We're dead serious.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver, who has made it increasingly clear that he is open to new, fresh ideas on ways to improve and expand the league, appeared on the Bloomberg Sports Business Summit where he discussed the idea of morning games and the catalyst for the move with Bloomberg’s Stephanie Ruhle and Cory Johnson.
“I think the biggest challenge (to growing the game internationally) is the time zone differences. I mean, for example, in China, roughly 12 hours different from the East Coast. So prime time games are on early in the morning, so you have to figure out whether we need to create new products, condensed games that are shown later, whether it becomes a business of highlights, whether it’s equivalent of tweets and other forms of social media.
“I think that’s sort of — part of the biggest challenge. I mean, ultimately, whether we should consider time-shifting some of our games. Once the audience becomes big enough, maybe it’s not so crazy to ask a team once every two months to play a Saturday morning game….
“Yes, maybe when the audience gets big enough China and you’re reaching 100 million people in China to say so maybe once in a while a team will play at 10:00 on Saturday morning.”
While this could all be Silver simply spitballing ideas, a more realistic approach to building up and appeasing their budding market would be to work alongside the Chinese Basketball Association. Would you be onboard with such an idea? Or, is this a case of too much of a good thing can be a bad thing?
[via Pro Sports Daily]
