Adam Silver, NBA commissioner.
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On the eve of a new season, National Basketball Association commissioner Adam Silver said his league will not cross the line to receive Covid-19 vaccines as the NBA tries to normalize its business.
The NBA returns on Tuesday for the 2020-21 campaign. The league chose to play a short 72-match season due to pandemic disruptions to its previous season, which ended in October instead of June, as usual. The NBA will try to finish this season before the Tokyo Olympics start in July 2021 and line up for a more normal off-season before starting again in October 2021.
The NBA pulled out two heavy hitters to start its new season. It will feature the Brooklyn Nets led by Kevin Durant against his former team, the Golden State Warriors, and the return of their star Stephen Curry.
The second game: the reigning champion Los Angeles Lakers hosts the Clippers, their rivals on the cross. This match was scheduled to be the preview of the Western Conference finals, but Steve Ballmer’s team broke out early last year, despite landing stars Kawhi Leonard and Paul George.
On Friday, the NBA Christmas Day lineup featured international superstars, including Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks, Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks and Nikola Jokic of Denver.
The Silver League is in an excellent position to enter a post-Covid world. The NBA is more diverse, with competing teams and the stars are spreading. The remaining task is to manage a season in which the Covid pandemic is more serious than it was when the league resumed in July.
“We are confident we can do it,” Silver said in a news release Monday. “And if we hadn’t been, we wouldn’t have started. I will say, however, that we anticipate that there will be unevenness along the way.”
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, receives the Moderna Inc. vaccine. Covid-19 during an event at the NIH Clinical Center Masur Auditorium in Bethesda, Maryland, USA, Tuesday, December 22, 2020.
Patrick Smeansky | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Vaccine support
Silver noted that the NBA would support “government efforts in terms of public message” to promote the safety of receiving the vaccine, acknowledging the skepticism of some about treatment.
“For me, my sense is that there is a large group out there that I would put in the category of vaccine indecisions,” he said. “I understand, there is a cohort that are strongly anti-vaccine and I think there will be opportunities to go through that.
“But I think there’s a much bigger group of people who take the ‘wait and see’ attitude, and I hope we’ll see potential vaccine workers, health workers and then the elderly and then people see that happen. safely and successfully, that the NBA community will then receive the vaccines when it is our turn. “
The NBA claims that Covid vaccines will be more widespread by April, in time for the postseason, which is scheduled to begin in May. Until then, maybe local governments will give more teams the green light to open arenas, because playoff revenue is good for teams.
“It’s a huge priority to bring fans back to the arenas,” Silver said, adding that about six teams will be able to start with spectators on Tuesday, as Florida and Texas allow fans to play. “I feel like we’ll learn a lot once we have regular season games with the fans there.”
Expansion or relocation is being considered
The NBA has raised $ 900 million this year to support teams this year and expects the pandemic losses to continue without fans in the short term.
Beyond this season, the league could contribute to the difference by adding more teams, which brings expansion fees. Silver said the NBA has stepped up talks on the issue, but added that they are still worried about the economic problems of the pandemic and recession.
Big market clubs like the New York Knicks – a team devoid of stellar power, with consecutive season losses, brand and image issues – can still make a profit. But most clubs suffer financially in slow economic cycles, which would be the case for any expansion team.
“I think I’ve always said it’s a kind of manifest destiny of the league that you’re expanding at some point,” Silver said. “I would say that it probably determined us to remove some of the analyzes on the economic and competitive impact of the expansion. We spent a little more time than we were pre-pandemics. But certainly not to the point that the expansion is on the front burner. “
Relocation is another option. Team owners can look for either option, as both carry fees paid to the NBA. The relocation allows the league to avoid sharing the largest revenue stream (media rights) between multiple landlords, although clubs may incur relocation fees and “liquidity clause” fees if they try to get rid of arena leases before the agreements expire. .
The discussion between sports bankers has put Seattle, Las Vegas and Kansas City in the NBA’s sights.
The biggest question is whether these markets – or any market – can support a new team during an economic downturn.
“It’s an economic issue and it’s a competitive issue for us,” Silver said. “So it’s one we’ll continue to study, but we spend a little more time on it than we were pre-pandemics.”
Kevin Durant # 7 of the Brooklyn Nets shoots the ball against the Washington Wizards during a pre-season game on December 13, 2020 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Nathaniel S. Butler | National Basketball Association | Getty Images
NBA race to 2 billion viewers
Perhaps the most prominent piece of the NBA is the desire to continue its global expansion and do so with a younger audience. Silver noted that the league is “close to nearly two billion people who consume the NBA in one way or another on social media globally.”
With changing consumer habits, the NBA race to surpass two billion would be huge in a post-Covid world, where a new generation of consumers seems disinterested in sports.
Research firm Morning Consult notes that Gen Z consumers (aged 13 to 23) are “less likely than the general population to identify as sports fans. Fifty-three percent of the 1,000 Zers surveyed consider themselves sports fans, compared to 63 percent of US adults and 69 percent of millennials in a subsequent survey. “
The only consumers in the US Major League Gen Z “over-indexed as fans to the general public” was the NBA.
This interest among younger consumers is why media expert project evaluations will return. And once Nielsen changes its rating system by 2024 to include digital values / streaming, the league’s media rights fees will continue to only target the National Football League.
“The only thing you know about the NFL is the most appealing thing about television, followed by the NBA,” said Kevin Krim, founder and CEO of data advertising firm EDO.
Silver is a 72-game season away from navigating the NBA through its most challenging period. Again, some swelling is expected in the next few months, but the NBA seems positioned for a brighter future in a new decade and a post-Covid-19 reality.
This future begins on Tuesday.