The preseason is often an opportunity to try new things, whether in terms of sport, with coaches testing new starting 5s or new players. But this can also be the case in the organization of matches. In the NBA, the Lakers will play in Palm Springs and Las Vegas, for example, and in Spain, the Granada club has decided to organize an outdoor matchand the poster even speaks of the “first street match”.
On Tuesday evening, Coviran Granada hosted the latest winner of the BAL, the Angolan club Petro de Luanda for a friendly match outdoors in front of the Congress Palace. It was a first for Spanish basketball. The locals won 80 to 67 in front of nearly 6,000 spectators. A match that was free for the public.
❤️ On the other hand, we can still see the middle of the road… and at the location of the Palacio de Congresos de Granada we have 6,000 years of experience in the first professional ballroom party on the street in Spain.
No, I don't think I'm super, I'm sure.
@CoviranGranada pic.twitter.com/7iKt0oOYwx
— Liga Endesa (@ACBCOM) August 27, 2024
NCAA game on aircraft carrier
In the United States, too, outdoor play has already been tried, and the Phoenix Suns are specialists in this. In 1972, during a pre-season match The Suns had met the Bucks in a baseball stadium in Puerto Rico. Faced with the difficulty of predicting weather conditions, the NBA had shelved the idea until 2008.
The Suns then met the Nuggets at Indian Wells, where the famous tennis tournament is held. They repeated the experience the following two years, meeting the Warriors and the Mavericks.
In the WNBA, it's absolutely a regular season game that was played outdoorsduring the 2008 season. At Arthur Ashe Stadium, which usually hosts the US Open final in New York, the Liberty lost to Tamika Catchings' Fever.
In 2011, the NCAA went even further. Tyler Zeller and Harrison Barnes' Tar Heels played Draymond Green's Spartans on an aircraft carrier in the first game of the Carrier Classic. In 2022, a new game was played on an aircraft carrier to commemorate the Armistice of 1918 and Veterans Day in the United States, and Gonzaga and Michigan State faced off on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln.
