The NBA in-season tournament has been a rousing success so far but there are several tweaks to be made which can draw more eyes to the event. One such move is already being planned by the NBA: moving the date to coincide with the end of the NFL regular season.
“Amazon and the NBA are in ‘active discussions’ on moving the In-Season Tournament back later in the schedule to sync with the end of the NFL season,” reported The Athletic’s Mike Vorkunov.
As the NBA’s newest media rights partner, Amazon has extensive plans to maximize NBA viewership. After inheriting the NBA from TNT and Warner Bros. Discovery for the next 11 years, Amazon will have the freedom to test and experiment with different ideas.
When it comes to moving the in-season tournament, both the league and Amazon seem committed to the idea, even if the fans are less than pleased with the proposal. Currently, the tournament (now named the NBA Emirates Cup) is set to play out in the first full month of the season and we’re already a few games into the event a week before Thanksgiving.
While the numbers have been solid so far, the NBA needs to grow its fanbase to keep up with the rising costs of running the league and if shifting the schedule has a chance to do that, then it’s worth giving it a shot.
The end of the NFL regular season is typically at the beginning of January, which would put the NBA in-season tournament somewhere after the Christmas Holiday. The problem with this, of course, is that the NFL playoffs will begin shortly after and all eyes will be on that event until it ends on Super Bowl Sunday (this year it’s on February 9th).
It would be much better for the NBA to wait until the NFL season is completely done to put on the Emirates Cup and that would mean waiting until mid-February. Of course, February is also the month of All-Star festivities, meaning that the in-season tournament would overlap with the break and a whole weekend of public events.
Of course, they can also have the in-season tournament in March, but it might cause some problems given the popularity of March Madness across the United States.
At this point, it’s not entirely clear to what date the NBA plans to move the Emirates Cup but they picked this portion of the schedule for a reason. The month of November is usually downtime for the NBA and while the football season is still active, it’s not at a point in the season where it overshadows the NBA.
Nevertheless, it seems Amazon isn’t certain about the current NBA calendar and they could make a number of tweaks before it’s all said and done. The important thing for them is to find a time that can bring the most viewers, which means not sharing the limelight with NFL football.
It’s obviously too late to implement any schedule changes this season but you can bet that the NBA will be monitoring the numbers closely to determine when is the best possible time for their highly acclaimed Emirates Cup.
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