NBA Hall of Famer Charles Barkley is among the fans and players alike who are brainstorming new ideas to help breathe new life into the NBA, amid reports that ratings are down this year and discontentment is growing pertaining to the league’s new All-Star Game format.
Charles Barkley says NBA is wasting its time trying to battle the NFL and college football for ratings
Barkley said during his Tuesday interview with Dan Patrick that he was listening to NBC and Amazon about potentially working with them next year notwithstanding TNT licensing “Inside the NBA” to ESPN.
On the topic of the league’s ongoing issues, Sir Charles wasted no time in presenting his clever idea in which the NBA can boost fan interest – pushing the start of the season back until Christmas Day.
“You know the best ratings we’ve ever had were the year we went on strike, Dan, and started on Christmas. I think we need to seriously consider starting at Christmas because listen, you’re wasting your time going up against the NFL and college football. They own the weekends now,” Barkley said.
“I think we need to seriously consider starting on Christmas because listen you’re wasting your time going up against the NFL and College Football, they own the weekends now… We’d have the entire calendar to ourself.”
-Charles Barkley on changing the start to the #NBA season pic.twitter.com/uJasfWlO3D
— Dan Patrick Show (@dpshow) December 18, 2024
“But I think if we started at Christmas, there’s no other sport that we’d have to compete with if we started at Christmas. College football would be over, pro football is winding down, we’d have the entire calendar late December, January, February, March, April, May, June to ourselves. I think it’s something we really need to consider, plain and simple,” Barkley added.
As Barkley correctly recalled, there was one season in recent history when the NBA did start on Christmas. The start of the 2011-2012 season was delayed because of a lockout. As a result, the NBA regular season tipped off on Christmas Day in a shortened 66-game season. Feedback from fans then was mostly positive.
Each NBA season would end in August instead of June if every season were to begin on Christmas Day
If each NBA season began on Christmas Day, this would mean every season would end in August instead of June. In other words, the league wouldn’t have to compete against the NFL and college football in the middle of their seasons anymore.
The NBA would still have to battle the MLB and NHL for ratings, but such a schedule change could be a step in the right direction for the Association. It would separate the NBA season from the NHL so that the Stanley Cup Final ended when the NBA Playoffs began.
NBA Christmas Day games are no longer as special since the NFL is also making it an annual tradition to schedule games on the holiday. For that reason, it would be more meaningful to begin the season then compared to a random night in the middle of late October.
However, there is one basketball league that Barkley’s idea would hurt: the WNBA. Each WNBA season runs from May through September. The WNBA All-Star Game is held in July.
Simply put, there is no way the WNBA will be able to compete against the NBA during the summertime, especially looking at where the NBA’s ratings are at now.
Overall, moving the start of the NBA season to Christmas Day offers more pros than cons.
