Shorter Game, More Commercials

Exit Stern, enter Silver.
No difference. The NBA commissioner still thinks all fans are morons.

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/eye-on-basketball/24751884/nba-experimenting-with-44-minute-game
The NBA is experimenting with the length of its games. The Boston Celtics and Brooklyn Nets will play a 44-minute contest at Barclay's center on Oct. 19 "to examine the flow of a shorter game as compared to the standard 48-minute game," the league announced on Tuesday. From the press release:
So let me get this straight...
The 48-min format has a total of SIX mandatory timeouts (3 in the 2nd, 3 in the 4th, but apparently none in the 1st or 3rd). The 44-min game will have EIGHT mandatory timeouts (2 in each quarter). This has ABSOLUTELY ZERO to do with speeding up the length of the game. Now that a GINORMOUS TV deal has been awarded, extra advertising revenue needs to be raised by adding more commercials. Fans are getting screwed, not to mention the historical comparison of records. Hey, with only 44 minutes, teams no longer need 15 players. Let's just go to 8-man teams, with all 8 players getting at least $10M each.


Silver, Stern and Thorn should have been taken out in left field and shot a long time ago.

Two hour games real time with football - like stoppages in play. Sounds like a cash cow.

boycott?

problem is most fans are enamored with stats/boxscores... and this hurts the casual fan's mood.

Everytime I watch the Jazz plays I always feel like the games aren't long enough already. Making the game 4 minutes less in total is just gonna make it worse for me.


During the World Cup I watched FIBA plays 10 minute quarters and that really six. Starters play 5min, gets subbed out. C'mon that just sux.

More commercials less basketball. Against it. What was Cuban saying about greedy pigs?


"Just watch. Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. When you try to take it too far, people turn the other way. I'm just telling you, when you've got a good thing and you get greedy, it always, always, always, always, always turns on you. That's rule No. 1 of business."

the bookie still has em at 23.5
only bet gone for the moment is who will finish 1st in division(because of the kevin durant injury odds have/had to be recalculated)

Ummmm....the current 48 minute game format has 10 mandatory TV timeouts, while the new experimental 44 minute game format would have 8 mandatory TV timeouts. Unless I suck at math I'm pretty sure 8 is less than 10.

Current format has under 6 and under 3 mandatory timeouts in the first and third quarters, and under 9, 6, and 3 mandatory in the second and fourth quarters unless full timeouts have been taken prior.

Don't know about the timeout issue but I hate the idea of 44 min games. I advocate for FIBA games to be 48 mins like in the NBA, not the other way around.

However, I believe that 82 regular games is too many, there are just so many meaningless games.

honz said:

Ummmm....the current 48 minute game format has 10 mandatory TV timeouts, while the new experimental 44 minute game format would have 8 mandatory TV timeouts. Unless I suck at math I'm pretty sure 8 is less than 10.

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According to the article, the 48-min format has 3 mandatory timeouts in the 2nd and 4th quarter. It does not mention ANY mandatory timeouts in the 1st or 3rd. Maybe the article is poorly written and there are a couple of mandatory timeouts in the 1st and 3rd. If so, I stand corrected. But I still see no sense in reducing the periods by 1 min each. Either leave it the way it is, or align the rules with that of FIBA (40 min games).

I could also see this as a precursor to cutting the size of the active rosters. With the elimination of a cap on max contracts. owners are going to have to save money somewhere. Part of the reason Miami only won 2 championships is they had little money left for any depth. Cutting 1 min off each quarter actually reduces total player minutes by 20 (5 players * 1min each * 4 quarters). That's the equivalent of 1 player. Teams would really just need a 7, or even 6 man rotation (220 mins/7 = 31.4 mins), especially given the two mandatory breaks each quarter.

Teams go to 10-man NBA rosters, with 5 more assigned to their minor league franchise. League gets what they want in that the stars are on the court for a longer period. NBA stars get what they want: more money in the sense that a much larger salary cap gets split fewer ways. And, a true minor league system is created.

wow.....the greed.

its not like they dont make enough money.

I dont want to watch a game with commercial after commercial.

This is a joke.

1 solution, change the automatic timeouts to just 2 per game, every 4 minutes. It eliminated 2 TV timeouts per game and its the same amount of college plays between time outs

Another problem is the amount of time taken at the end of games. Make all TO's in the last 2 minutes of the game 20 second time outs, and speed up the free throws. Everyone has to line up within 15 or 20 seconds, and only give 5 seconds for free throw. Make it a technical if anyone isn't ready.

Better officiating would speed the game up. Stop calling ticky-tack fouls and stop the star treatment. Breathing on an all-star doesn't constitute a foul; you actually must make contact.

Not one of Silver's better ideas.

This ****s with history and doesn't really save players gas, wear and tear, and doesn't increase the importance of each game. Keep it the ****ing same, or if you're going to **** with it, do it for the RIGHT reasons. They make enough ****ing money.

heyhey said:

More commercials less basketball. Against it. What was Cuban saying about greedy pigs?


"Just watch. Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. When you try to take it too far, people turn the other way. I'm just telling you, when you've got a good thing and you get greedy, it always, always, always, always, always turns on you. That's rule No. 1 of business."

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Damn.

I kind of hate that I love Mark Cuban.

I don't think anyone has a problem with how long the game lasts. They just have a problem with how long the end of the game can take.

This idea is so bad. I wish I believed fans would boycott if they tried it, but I think we all know that any protest would be short-lived. I'm very unimpressed by Silver for even considering this, let alone actually testing it in a game.

Enes CanTear You Apart said:

Don't know about the timeout issue but I hate the idea of 44 min games. I advocate for FIBA games to be 48 mins like in the NBA, not the other way around.

However, I believe that 82 regular games is too many, there are just so many meaningless games.

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If they were really worried about the players health as they claim they could drop preseason games. That's 8 games.

82 might sound like a lot but it's really not. Take a physical job like a hod tender. I'd say 250 8 hour days.

Further evidence would be the workout and training that NBA players do. If they don't they get out of shape. Pretty hard to argue that the season is too long if you have to workout on your off time to keep from getting fat imo.

sgjazzfan said:

I don't think anyone has a problem with how long the game lasts. They just have a problem with how long the end of the game can take.

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I assume you realize that this is not being done to address any sort of problem fans have with the game whatsoever. It's nothing but a money grab.