Geez there were a lot of posts in the last 8 hours to catch up on (number of pages doubled since this afternoon):
I don't think it's just an operational issue at WDW that this would impact. Disney trying to get the NBA and MLS affects other parts of the Disney business. Getting them up and going will help with advertising across networks and other income streams. I wonder if it doesn't make business sense to make sure these events happen rather than opening Parks & Resorts to "regular folks".
Just to add to the advertising point: last year's NBA finals (went 6 games, televised on ABC) generated $266 million in ad revenue.
. . .
Having no idea of the proposed deal with the NBA, so who knows what this deal could mean for the future of NBA playoff tv rights. Perhaps exclusive Disney+ “Hardknocks” themed show. There are millions if not billions in ad/tv revenue and potential down road impact on ESPN, ABC, and/or Disney+. . .
This actually gave me a light bulb moment I hadn't thought about with following all of this and have not heard mentioned by any of the NBA coverage I've heard:
Adam Silver (NBA Commissioner) has been pushing the idea of trying to create some type of in-season tournament. If this goes well enough for the league and for Disney, perhaps it becomes a neutral site tournament held at Disney each year. If that could be the case, this could be big for both the NBA and Disney.
Maybe. How many fans does the NBA have? But the point is they could do both.
If they are staying closed through the season anyway, and want to use this as a good excuse, then ok. But I think they’ll open the parks even with the NBA
All speculation on my part, but I think they may be looking at an east and a west venue and will go straight to a play-off scenario so eastern conference teams in Orlando and western conference teams in Las Vegas. That would cut your numbers in half making housing the players/staff/coaches, etc. even more doable, IMHO! . . .
Well, not just speculation, this had been reported as a possibility this week. It appears from today's announcements that they're looking at just Orlando now. As far as the straight to playoffs, I saw a report that the league was polling the owners today to get an idea of their preferences as to whether to play some regular season games, all of them, none of them, play-in tournament, etc.
Well that was a terrible headline, especially considering it's on NBA.com. It was just about the same statement that was reported everywhere earlier today - that they're "engaged in exploratory conversations." There was nothing "official" about them restarting the season in July at WDW.
I think basketball with no fans could lead to some cool stuff. But it depends on how much they let you hear. To be able to hear the players and coaches talk would be very interesting to me. Would love to hear some of trash talk that goes on.
Might need to move that to ESPN+ side of the paywall, though, because language
Just heard this discussed a few days ago on a podcast. I think it would be really cool, and it was their suggestion to just have a few minute delay on the broadcasts in order to censor any language (they also pointed out there'd have to be no live betting that is usually available on games).
There is talk of starting next season in December. If that goes well they may just keep it that way.
Bill Simmons has been pounding the drum on this since at least early this year, if not a lot longer (can't remember when he started pushing it) and just having the league go from December through August. I think it's the Christmas games that typically start bringing audiences anyway.