The NBL needs to learn from the success of the NBA and schedule two games every year on Christmas Day.
Games on Christmas generate massive interest and exposure for the NBA. After families have tucked in to their Christmas lunch, millions of Americans flick on the TV to watch some basketball.
When I was over there, you always looked forward to the Christmas games and the high profile teams and players involved.
The NBL could really benefit from going down the same path.
The reality for the NBL is that it’s at a stage in its life cycle where it must get creative about finding ways to improve interest and exposure.
There’s currently no sport on Christmas Day in Australia, which means it represents a huge opportunity for basketball to carve out a niche.
The crowds probably wouldn’t flock in huge numbers, so you’d perhaps stick to smaller venues to make it work, but this is the wrong way to look at it anyway.
Instead of talking about getting 10,000 to the game, we should be talking about getting hundreds of thousands watching at home while there is zero competition on.
Most families at Christmas have their lunch, open presents and then afterwards sit on the couch, talk and look for something to watch. It’s no secret that Australians love to watch sport.
To fill this void, you could play a Sydney-Melbourne game at 2pm, followed by a Perth-Adelaide game at 4pm. That way, as with the NBA’s model, you’d have high profile teams that don’t necessarily like each other showcasing the product.
If it’s done right, it will reach a large number of people that wouldn’t normally watch basketball and introduce them to the NBL.
It would mean players and coaches are away from their families, but it’s something we’d have to sacrifice so that the sport can grow a bigger profile.
In the past I’ve travelled on Christmas Day to get to games on Boxing Day. This would be one of those things.
To make up for the likely smaller crowds, you could go all out tailoring the games for TV. Given the extra amount of people watching at home, you could make up the revenue through sponsorship.
Ultimately, though, playing on Christmas would be all about promoting the game and the league when there’s no competition at all from any other sport.
It’s a massive opportunity. The NBA has led the way, it’s time we followed.
Shane Heal is the current coach of the NBL’s Sydney Kings. He played NBA basketball for the Minnesota Timberwolves and San Antonio Spurs and represented Australia at four Olympics. Follow him on Twitter: @ShaneHeal
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