The NBA has “owned” Christmas Day since 1947. The league’s best teams and biggest stars take center stage in a day that has become very important economically.
But the NFL threatens to take over Christmas as it continues to expand its broadcast windows and the NBA needs to be as bold as ever with its innovations.
NFL Coming For NBA
This year multiple NBA MVPs and champions will take to the court on Christmas Day as it is the biggest ratings day for the league outside of the NBA Finals. Because of all the eyeballs it’s a big part of the league’s media rights deal with the networks as advertisers want to get their products in front of a captive audience.
NFL Has Had Christmas Day Success
But the NFL will be broadcasting three games on Christmas, and they will be head-to-head with the NBA’s best matchups.
The New York Giants vs. Philadelphia Eagles will be up against the Boston Celtics vs. Los Angeles Lakers, and the Baltimore Ravens vs. San Francisco 49ers will be up against the Philadelphia 76ers vs. Miami Heat.
The NFL has traditionally stayed away from Christmas, so long as it didn’t fall on one of their broadcast windows. That used to be just Sunday and Monday. But the league airs games on Thursday and Saturday too. The latter later in the season, which is when Christmas falls.
So the only days of the week the NBA is free to have Christmas to themselves are Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. That doesn’t bode well for the NBA.
Last year the NFL averaged 22.9 million viewers across its three Christmas games, dwarfing the NBA’s 4.27 million average viewers. That trend won’t change this year. Why wouldn’t the NFL eventually take Christmas over?
The NFL has all of the inherent advantages: scarcity, the fantasy/gambling element, violence, and its superstars (QBs) don’t change teams often.
But the NBA has advantages too. Its stars are far more popular, recognizable, and marketable. The social media appetite for the NBA outweighs the NFL.
It’s why the NBA needs to continue to innovate and be even bolder with its ideas. The In-Season Tournament was a start, but they need to be bolder.
The NBA Needs Bolder Innovation
Adding a four-point line would be interesting, testing the limits and imagination of coaches and players alike. Elam endings in certain designated games, where teams push to a targeted score. Shortening the NBA regular season and expanding the IST to a true world-format like association football’s Champion’s League or FIFA Club World Cup.
Make the game more unpredictable. Data has shown us that single-elimination formats drive viewership. The audience grows when the unpredictable happens. The NBA’s lengthy regular season where half the teams make the playoffs, and best-of-seven four-round playoff system almost always ensures that the best team wins. That’s not a compelling television product.
If you want to get into the nitty0gritty, eliminate the draft but maintain a salary floor and cap. Allow incoming players to negotiate with whatever team they want and if that team can pay, great. If not? Better luck next time.
Contrarians will say, “what about the money?” Some of the smartest people work in sports and sports business. Sell more jersey sponsorships, license player exclusive content for a fee, make the tournament a separate part of any media rights deal and charge a premium. This can be figured out.
All of this will sound extreme to “purists” and old heads. But the world and its sports are changing. If the NBA wants to continue to generate the revenue it does, clinging onto this old model won’t work.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver is in the process of negotiating the league’s next media rights deal and he wants to bump the league’s revenue to $75 million. That deal will get done, maybe not to the exact amount he and the 30 governors wants, but close.
But it’s the next deal that should be concerning all interested parties. As the cable television model continues to collapse and streamers consolidate and realize it’s cost-prohibitive to get into sports rights at these exorbitant fees, something will have to give. Particularly if the sport can generate high ratings.
A regular season NFL game has an eight-year average of 17.2 million viewers. The 2022 NBA Finals featuring the Golden State Warriors and superstar Stephen Curry versus the Boston Celtics, a historic franchise, averaged 14.4 million viewers per game over the six-game championship series.
It’s not a direct comparison, as basketball has a best-of-seven format and any single NFL game carries a lot of meaning. But those types of numbers can’t sustain if the NBA is looking to grow revenue and doesn’t want Christmas Day taken away.