sixtiesrockstar
Years ago
Just looked at fixture for 36ers. Not one of their Saturday games is a night game with all played in afternoon. Does anyone know the reasoning for this? Can understand afternoon games on Sundays but would've thought they would get some of the Saturday games programmed for primetime at night for crowds and TV.
Isaac
Years ago
Possibly stipulated by the TV partner. If it's not in the interests of fans attending games, I can't see another reason why they'd do it. Alternatively, venue hire/scheduling in the bigger cities? But then it's not like they could turn around from basketball game to concert in an hour.
paul
Years ago
I suspect the NBL can't get TV ratings at night due to the amount of other competition on at that time (when ONE changed it to 10.30pm games the ratings were almost as good as for 7.30pm the year before) so they're trying to get a slot with some clean air.
ME
Years ago
Yes, Saturday night prime time TV would be hard to get for the NBL.
Saturday afternoon timeslot when horse racing's Spring Carnival is at its peak dueing the beginning of the an NBL season isn't clean.
TM
Years ago
It would appear that since NBL and WNBL (administrators and fans) have been calling for more exposure via FTA TV, that the target audience for that are going to be able to watch (want to watch) live games during the day.
If that does grow the interest, fan base, and hence paying customers then its a good thing for the sport as a whole.
Existing paying fans have to accept and adapt, or as a few have stated, leave.
It's simple really. In most major sports, the power rests with the league. That has never been the case with the NBL.
Having taken control of the league, Kestleman is a bit like the dog that caught the car.
So he's been trying to grow the power of the league, at the expense of the powerhouse teams.
Unfortunately, this is just majorly, unbelievably, bad for the competition.
TV deals will never deliver major cash for Basketball in this country. Bums on seats is the only thing that pays for anything, and after teams have worked for years (or in some case decades) to build up those numbers, Kestleman is pissing it all away.
It would be bad enough even if it were actually going to deliver a tv audience but it won't. That argument is self-defeating.
If we've proven one thing over the past 40 years, its that NBL doesn't rate. All the wishing in the world doesn't change that.
So, whoopity doo, in an era when FTA is dying in the arse, and the networks are practically giving away air-time on their secondary stations, the NBL has been granted a 3rd-rate timeslot on a 2nd-rate broadcast. And for that Kestleman is pissing in the face of loyal fans.
The fundamental problem is that it appears Kestleman is listening to the 95% (and there's a lot of them here.) These are the majority of fans, who follow the league, but never actually contribute a cent.
The 5%, who actually buy tickets, are being ignored.
Great post, right up until you said that 95% of the people who follow the league never actually attend a game. How do they follow it then?
ME
(he/kangaroo)
Years ago
To me, for TV to work you have to show a game with an atmosphere and full stadiums. It seems like there are a few barriers already in the way to providing that.
My point was, if you look at a particular team, the critical fans are those with season memberships (who also tend to buy merchandise)
then you have those, who individually attend a few games a year.
Then you have a mass of people who "follow" the sport/team.
This could be anything from a passing interest, to genuine fans who do their best to follow the team via the media.
And I don't mean to disrespect that group of fans. I was one for many year, doing my utmost to follow my team, even when there were no games telecast on TV, and i had to listen on the radio.
I should also point out, that its those type of fans that deliver a massive TV revenue to sports like AFL.
Problem is that naturally they are in favour of better TV coverage, but that doesn't pay the bills in the NBL. Never has, and realistically never will.
What I also forgot to actually say, is that if NBL on FTA rated well, then we wouldn't be stuck with crap timeslots. So no morning games, and no problems. If the coverage was worth paying for, they wouldn't waste it.
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