10, 3, 13, 1, 11, 7 and 8. This is not the EuroMillions draw but the number of games played each night this week. So with very busy Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, while Tuesdays and Thursdays are very light.
A recurring pattern since the resumption since the NBA schedules an average of 9.2 games on Monday, 11.6 on Wednesday and 11.1 on Friday. This average drops to 6.9 on Saturday and 7.3 on Sunday but above all it collapses to 3.1 on Tuesday and downright 2.3 on Thursday. For a long time, the number of games scheduled each evening was quite constant, but the league has visibly changed its tune for some time, particularly this year…
Why ? Keith Smith explains it in a tweet. If the NBA schedules a minimum of games on Thursday, it is to avoid facing the NFL and its very powerful “Thursday Night Football”.
As for Tuesday, it is undoubtedly under the pressure of TNT, which wants pretty posters, without too much competition.
I get that the NBA is trying to avoid putting too many games on Thursdays against the NFL and that Tuesdays are somewhat TNT exclusive for now, but going from three games to 13 games to ONE game is doing too much.
—Keith Smith (@KeithSmithNBA) November 30, 2022
Of course, everyone understands that it’s important for American television networks, which are the main financiers of the NBA, to set up key events and find ways to maximize their audiences. But going from an evening like yesterday, with five or six very interesting games, to the next, with a poor Detroit-Dallas as the only spectacle, may not be the best calculation for Adam Silver.
