What the NBA Can Learn from Formula 1
stratechery.com
stratechery.com
Introduce the major players and recap last season. Show me the drama- who did unexpectedly well and who choked in the playoffs. Explain why Nicola Jokic won a second MVP and why that’s cool. Show me behind-the-scenes footage of players.
Basically, they should make it as easy as possible to go from zero to full fan. You should be able to jump into a new season and know what’s going on.
I have two observations. A few years ago, I took my son to a Formula 1 event that was not related to a race, it was just some thing that was traveling city to city around the US. They had tents with cars and gear and people to explain things, and then they closed off a boulevard and had F1 cars of different eras driving up and down at moderate speed (maybe 100 mph max?). But the cars had to do U-turns at both ends, and only the 1980s car could actually do it. The rest had to rev, do a couple donuts, and then come out of the smoke at 180 degrees to where they came in. But half the time the driver would stall the car, a tow truck had to come get them, and they’d send out another car while getting the other one restarted. It was all in good fun, and everyone had a super noisy fun time.
Second, the new MLS soccer deal with Apple looks really interesting. As far as I can tell it is available worldwide, and you don’t need to be an AppleTV subscriber (but you get a $20 discount if you are). People around the world aren’t really going to care about the MLS, but because of the time zones the live matches are going to be on at times where there isn’t much else in the way of live soccer. It could end up getting a lot of subscribers just for that.
I think this is where the midseason tournament idea can come in. 75k might be nothing to the max contract guys in the all star game, but half the players on every team are on minimum deals making around a million. The 75k would be big for those guys and I think the peer pressure from them could be enough to get the stars to really go out there and give it their all.
As far as the all star game goes, I'm not sure fixing it is possible or even that necessary. What's wrong with it just being a harlem globetrotters game? Sure the ratings won't be great, but maybe that's just something the league has to accept.
And yes, totally agree - nothing wrong with it being a glorified layup line. My point is just that unless the game itself is made truly competitive, I don't think there's much that can done to increase viewership. There's a lot of other things they can do though to gain viewership across All-Star weekend in general.
I‘d pay to watch. But I won’t subscribe to German sky to watch. I pay for international gamepass and I love it. I watch when I want and what I want to, in the original language.