On Friday, the NBA and the NBA players union mutually agreed to a fourth extension of the right afforded to either side to terminate the collective bargaining agreement.
And as the clock ticks toward that Nov. 6 deadline, the two sides are at an impasse with respect to when the 2020-21 season will tip-off.
The league’s owners have recently communicated their desire to begin the 2020-21 season on Dec. 22, with teams convening for training camp on Dec. 1. With the NBA Finals concluding on Oct. 11, it would be a mere seven weeks between. That’s less than half the time under normal scenarios.
According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the desire of the owners to begin next season so much sooner than initially predicted is for want of financial considerations.
Starting the season later than the Dec. 22 proposal could put the NBA in the difficult predicament of once again competing with Major League Baseball, the NFL and, even worse, the Tokyo Olympics, which are set to begin on July 23, 2021.
In all, the owners estimate that the January start could cost them up to $1 billion in losses, not including the estimated 10% revenue loss that the coronavirus pandemic caused the league to sustain for the 2019-20 season.
The league’s players, however, are said to not be too keen on having to report for next season so soon. The unofficial counterproposal from the players is said to be to begin the season at or around Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on Jan. 18, 2021.
If the players get their way, however, the early report states that teams would only play 50 games in a truncated season, which would result in the players losing nearly 40% of their salaries for next season. On the other hand, the owners’ proposal would call for another 72-game season, would mitigate the losses significantly.
…[T]he NBA fears delaying the start of the 2020-21 season until January could cost the league an additional $500 million to $1 billion in revenue losses next season and beyond, sources said…
A mid-January start around Martin Luther King Day would take the league past the July Summer Olympics and into the summer months, when the league fears television ratings would plummet. The NBA is estimating significant financial turmoil if the league has to compete with the Summer Olympics for television ratings in July.
In other words, there’s a dilemma.
With respect to the players, many of them dream of competing in the Olympics. There are also obvious commercial opportunities that come with that, as well. If the timeline of the season and postseason is pushed back even a few weeks — much less a month — it would jeopardize the ability of players on the teams competing in the Finals to prepare for the Olympics.
This story, obviously, will continue to develop.