{"id":120337,"date":"2019-07-16T05:39:17","date_gmt":"2019-07-16T10:39:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=120337"},"modified":"2019-07-16T07:21:10","modified_gmt":"2019-07-16T12:21:10","slug":"random-thoughts-long-seasons-tv-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2019\/07\/16\/random-thoughts-long-seasons-tv-money\/","title":{"rendered":"Random Thoughts: pro seasons, TV money"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SCOTT TRUXELL\/<\/strong>independent sports editor<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This week\u2019s Random Thoughts center around long seasons and TV dollars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Long pro sports seasons<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the questions submitted to the latest Monday Mailbag was about shortening the NBA season and the long MLB season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many people think pro sports seasons are too long and they\u2019re right. Of course, it all comes down to TV and TV money, so no big changes will come anytime soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is just my opinion, but here\u2019s how pro sports seasons should look:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NFL \u2013 Forget the idea of adding two more games to the regular season schedule. Stick with 16 games and start on Labor Day weekend. Keep the existing playoff format but do away with the extra week off between conference championship games and the Super Bowl. The season would still be over in January. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

NBA \u2013 In reality this probably won\u2019t happen, but reduce the number of regular season games to 70 or 72 and start the regular season in early November, then end it in late March. That\u2019s roughly five months to play 70 or 72 games. Turn the playoffs into a best of five series so the season doesn\u2019t drag into June. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

MLB \u2013 Start in mid-April and stop scheduling season openers in cold weather cities. There are plenty of places to open the season that make perfect sense \u2013 the West Coast, Texas and domed stadiums. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Go to a 150 game schedule and wrap up the regular season by Labor Day weekend. If that involves scheduling a couple of day-night or traditional doubleheaders, so be it. Do away with the wild card playoff game. It\u2019s strictly for television and the extra revenue. Streamline the process so the World Series is done in a reasonable time in October, so players and fans are dodging snowflakes in cold weather cities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

NHL \u2013 This won mirrors the NBA in many ways, starting with an 82 game schedule which begins in October and ends in April, which means the Stanley Cup finals are in June. Outside of the most diehard hockey fans, does anyone really want to see hockey in June?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like the NBA, reduce the schedule, start the regular season later and end it earlier and go to a best of five format. All of that should help reduce wear and tear on the players and should ultimately result in a product that\u2019s just as good as or better than what\u2019s currently offered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TV controls<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I mentioned before, none of the above proposals will likely happen. There\u2019s too much money at stake, especially television money. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Networks shell out big bucks to air games and they turn to sponsors with deep pockets to cover the cost and (hopefully) turn a profit. Much of the TV money helps fund player salaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This isn\u2019t meant to bash television, because it allows millions of people who can\u2019t attend games the ability to still enjoy them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in a great sense, TV drives the bus. It\u2019s why NBA finals games and the World Series start at 9 or 9:20 p.m. It\u2019s prime time and it means West Coast viewers won\u2019t be watching games at 5 or 6 p.m. Of course, the later times aren\u2019t friendly to those of us in the Eastern time zone, but that doesn\u2019t seem to matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TV is why college football now has so many Saturday night games, which isn\u2019t necessarily a bad thing. Then again, some of these Saturday night games seem to take four hours or longer, often times running past midnight. Why? Because commercial breaks are added or are longer to squeeze out every last dollar. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Television is also why you see MAC college football games on Tuesdays and Wednesdays in November. It\u2019s nice for those schools to get some TV exposure but it affects attendance in a big way. Just look at the number of people in the stadium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If ESPN or any other network tells a conference we have a truckload of money to give you but we want you to play at 8 on Tuesday or Wednesday, the general response will be \u201cFine, 8 a.m. or 8 p.m.?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TV is why college football and basketball have conference tournaments. Conference champs were determined during the regular season. The tournaments are designed specifically for television revenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, it\u2019s all about the money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As always, if you have thoughts on the above subjects, feel free to email me at sports@thevwindependent.com<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCOTT TRUXELL\/independent sports editor This week\u2019s Random Thoughts center around long seasons and TV dollars. Long pro sports seasons One of the questions submitted to the latest Monday Mailbag was about shortening the NBA season and the long MLB season. Many people think pro sports seasons are too long and they\u2019re right. Of course, it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-120337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-01 09:30:58","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120337\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}