This really has nothing to do with the kids, the wife or the mortgage, but it is something that i was interested in and that is what they tell me the blog is for.
The NFL is popular because most males play football growing up and understand the rules and enjoy watching. The unspoken popularity is the gambling, office pools, fantasy football (which is really gambling in a different form), etc. I think the other aspect that enhances the gambling opportunities is simply that the games are played once a week as a general rule, on a regular schedule. Also, a team can lose a few games without being eliminated from a championship. but at the same time, there are few enough games that each game does matter. I guess that is where I am going with this, that other major sports could learn a lesson from this strategy as well.
Baseball is talking about adding another two teams to their playoffs because more fans will be excited about post season play and more fans will attend late season games, making more money. This argument is false. Just look at the NBA.
At this point, most of the NBA teams have played 20 games, or 25% of their season is complete. Today, we already know who will make the playoffs and the remaining 60 games are for owners to make money to play outrageous player salaries and give me more opportunities to pay $6 for a hot dog and $9 for a beer. Additionally, it doesn't help when only 8 teams win the championship in the last 30 years. It drops to just 6 teams when you take out one-year champions, Philadelphia and Miami. In the same thirty 30 time period, 14 different teams have won the Super Bowl, which is over 40% of the league. From a fan perspective, on opening day, only 1 in 3 NBA fans believe their team can win the championship. Some of them are just hoping to win one series in the playoffs for it to be a really good year before they get beat by the Lakers or the Celtics.
I do not watch games on TV because the schedule is so erratic. My favorite team might play five games in one week and two games the next, and not even on the same day of the week. I do not even know which games will be televised. However, with football, I know that my team will be on TV every Sunday. It is either the early or the late game, but Sunday afternoon, I can watch football with my friends and root for my favorite team. Owners could make more money by having fewer games that were more meaningful in deciding the league champion. The TV and radio broadcast rights could be sold for more money if more viewers watched. More viewers would watch and more fans would attend if there were fewer games and the schedule was played at the same time each week. Games could be played on Wednesday and Saturday. The NFL plays a schedule where not every team plays all the other teams and that has not dampened enthusiasm for their sport. Why does the NBA insist on having every team play every other team?
So, without further ado, we will write down the eight teams from each division that will begin playing the real NBA season starting in April and ending in June. Check back in April to see how meaningful the remaining 60 games were.
Eastern Conference Western Conference
1. Boston 1. San Antonio
2. Orlando 2. Dallas
3. Miami 3. LA Lakers
4. Chicago 4. Utah
5. Atlanta 5. New Orleans
6. New York 6. Oklahoma City
7. Indiana 7. Phoenix
8. TBD 8. Portland
You will notice that the 8th playoff spot in the west is empty, because it was too close between the remaining eight teams to determine which one of them would win the right to get beaten badly in the first round and miss out on the NBA lottery draft. For now, we will pick Toronto to add an international flavor to the NBA playoffs.
