I couldn’t agree more! But they won’t do this because money.

Agree with most of this, but why do they need to reduce the games? NBA players made it for decades without 82 being an issue. I’d be fine with reducing it because it feels bloated, but reducing the schedule has nothing to do with load management.

Amen my dude

Imagine if ticket pricing was based on talent on the floor that night. You get a reduced ticket, or they refund you a certain amount because all the starters got pulled in the 4th.

This year in particular has been brutal for some reason. There’s like a cloud of doom of hovering over the entire product, which is strange because some ancillary aspects of the product — like national tv broadcasts for example — have never been better, and the players themselves have never been better either. Despite that, I have watched less NBA than ever before this year. The regular season feels like a chore.

Lmao right? In the NBA having soreness is enough reason to be out, but in the NHL you’ll have guys who good yeah I broke my hand the second game of the season but I played the whole year anyways lol”

I’m not saying the NHL is 100% against load management but you don’t see stars sitting out until there’s a week left in the season and the playoff matchups are determined

The goalie might not start depending on the load, but that’s one player not a whole team.

They’d still find some excuse to not play games. Sadly, it’s become a cultural thing in the NBA considering top players are more concerned with career longevity vs. in-season play.

We used to have 4 in 5 nights, and sometimes back to back to backs.

The NBA has eliminated a ton of scheduling types to continuously support stars not sitting. It hasn’t changed anything. They’ll still miss games for load management.

I’d love to watch that shit.

Who doesn’t like Pros vs Joes?

They just have to tell Hays wemby was the wizards mascot and he will go Bobby Boucher.

On the flip side, all the Reddit arm chair GMs are ready to have Curry sit the rest of the season as a precaution so he doesn’t get injured. Everyone things they are smarter than the league. At the end of the day the players are entertainers. They are funded mostly by fans that go to the game and watch them on TV.

Not even just tickets to games to see stars, but even just watching the games. I used to be able to just buy the NBA pass on YouTube tv, I’m not buying 37 different stream subscriptions just to get whichever game happens to be on tonight.

yeah i came here to try to deflect for whatever reason, but this is true. it happens so often that it definitely is an issue if im being honest

the schedule needs less games

If they can’t play 30 minutes of basketball 82 times a year then how the fuck can you justify them making 60+ million dollars per year

This isn’t a problem in the NHL and they play at a much higher pace. They play back to backs just like the NBA does, this is just a problem of the players not wanting to play

Why have a regular season at all? Just do a playoffs where everyone plays hard, crown a champion, and call it a day.

The NHL has the same number of regular season games and doesn’t have this problem. You could argue most NHL players only play about half to three quarters of the minutes NBA players do on a nightly basis but I think the physical nature of the NHL compared to the NBA makes up for that difference

There’s a reason you have more than 5 players on a roster. You’re meant to use your bench

He’s also like LeBron levels of old relative to his sport

Messi is 90

I agree. People who are traveling to see games shouldn’t have to gamble, even if it’s a small gamble, on being able to get tickets last minute. If that’s the norm, the league sucks.

Are we supposed to keep pretending the players are modern slaves living terrible work conditions?

Anytime anybody tries to bring up a legitimate critique, they’re immediately dismissed.

Hard working people pay hard earned money to see some spoiled 20-sums and the only response for the last decade has been—players once a year just say, “well we don’t see our families!” as if we’re not all also working monkeys not seeing our families, except we’re not paid hundreds of millions of dollars.

Also, “if you don’t care where you sit” is doing a lot of work here.

If I drove 3 hours for a game to see specific players on my favorite team play, I’m going to care where I sit.

Don’t have NBA in my city, but if you go to the hockey arena and wait for 5 minutes into the 1st period, ticket prices drop like 80%.

I’ve never bought NBA tickets before (or any sport lol) but don’t tickets get sold out to resellers that close to gametime?

I can’t even imagine how expensive is that Lakers playoffs tickets bullet

Ya but 5x the price.

I think this comment sums up the recent issues with the NBA, they’ve basically enshittified the league for sports betting and ads

Silver to OP: did you try watching highlights instead of coming to the game?

Nah, he’s just trying to crowdfund a trip to his home planet.. Shit’s expensive

NHL plays 82, soon to be 84, games a season, yet players (except for goalies) don’t sit out back to back games and will regularly play through injuries, even when they really shouldn’t.

Oh I’m sorry that the 50 million player is tired, let me get to my boss that we have too much work and I won’t come back to work in the next few months. Stfu there is no excuse for overpaid buggers to rest ever

Open tanking going unpunished is going to make it so much worse

I go to about a dozen Mets games a year and never buy tickets in advance unless we have a huge group. I generally pay between \(8-15 per ticket... sometimes there are people in the parking lot unloading tix for like \)5 each. On Tuesdays Citi Field even has a special with \(5 beers, hot dogs, pretzels, etc... so you can make a night out of it without breaking the bank. In contrast I went to see a Nets / Celtics game last year and spent well over \)100 just for a ticket and a few beers. The lines for everything were also atrocious. I love basketball but going to the games sucks.

literally. don’t even know what the league can do at this point because teams will just eat whatever fines they get for resting guys. then who’s to say they’re not actually hurt.

Baseball deals with it to a lesser extent. You really have to wait until a couple of weeks before to time up a pitcher you want to see (injuries, rotation lining up, skipped starts, etc..) and sometimes an every day guy just gets the day off (took me a few years to see Vladdy live because of that lol)

Everything they said regarding prices is true in other sports though.

Unless it’s an unusually high demand game, ticket prices in most sports are cheapest within 12 hours of start time. If you’re trying to be price conscious you really should never buy resale tickets in advance.

Exactly… people having to give guidance on how to buy tickets just to get an average experience is fucking insane. Basketball is my favourite sport but the NBA is the worst product to watch of the major NA sports and it really isn’t even close.

big games won’t have the price drop as much the day of, and may even continue to increase depending on the story lines. That’s all he meant, he was just giving advice to get into a game in the most cost effective manner

Yea these rules just show that the league needs to figure something out so fans done have to think about that.

You’re correct. However this will never change because the players would have to accept less money to reduce the amount of games which will never happen

I agree with you. Until you get the players to accept fewer games a year and therefore less $$, this will never change.

I would love to see the season lessened but there’s plenty of reasons for both the NBA and players association to reject this.

Hockey - You can see a whole play develop, best sport to watch live from a spectator standpoint

Football - Most fun crowd experience

Baseball - Chill, don’t have to be too into the game, generally nice weather and cheapest

Basketball - Unless you’re damn near courtside the spectating isn’t that great, players don’t always play, often only the last 2 minutes matter

I wonder why there’s only one sports team in my city I don’t have season tickets to

I cant remember the last time I watched hockey in TV but I really enjoy it live. I think football is awful live.

The thing about basketball is it can be great live. You can sit close (just like hockey) and the size and speed of the players stands out so much more. But they are squandering that. Every time I think about taking my kids, I end up not because I’ve got 3 teams 2-3 hours from me and all of them are expensive even for nosebleeds, a long drive, and I have no idea what kind of product I’m going to get.

They are making money I guess so it wont really change until they aren’t but its a bummer.

No one could see him in all those trees. The halftime show is built for television now. 

Likely they don’t have kids if they couldn’t see it from that perspective.