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This time of year is when summer sporting leagues really start to pick up momentum and come to life, something those behind the Big Bash League and A-League are fully aware of.
The start of the Big Bash League on Friday coincides with the start of the school holidays for most of the country. We can safely assume this is an intentional strategy.
The A-League is likewise gearing up with a string of marquee fixtures on the horizon, starting with Saturday’s Melbourne Derby.
And for their intuitive scheduling you can be sure these leagues will be rewarded. For Cricket Australia the reward has come early in the form of a new $100 million broadcast deal with Network Ten.
You would think that the NBL, who are competing for space with these two leagues, are in on this too.
After all, some of the NBL’s best crowds also traditionally come around the Christmas-early January period. Even last weekend, both the New Zealand Breakers and Sydney Kings had their best home crowds of the season.
Going off that, you can imagine the league being set for another round of big crowds this week.
Except, of course, there will be no NBL games this week.
The NBL, much unlike its direct competitors, has gone into an 11-day hiatus.
The back-story here is that this weekend was left open on the fixture to accommodate an All-Star Game.
After the NBL’s de-merger from Basketball Australia in the off-season, the All-Star Game understandably dropped down the list of priorities. The new management had a lot to get done in a short space of time, so that’s fair enough.
But the issue is that even if there were All-Stars playing this weekend, one game in the space of 11 days at this time of year is still not enough to avoid having your pants pulled down by your competitors.
Last year, even with an ASG, between 17 December and 3 January there were 15 Big Bash games and 15 A-League games, yet only six NBL games.
This unsurprisingly coincided with a drop-off in momentum for the NBL. While the league’s average TV audience improved in both November and December, in January those increases were wiped out.
What’s worse is that the numbers were unable to bounce back in subsequent months, implying that the effects go beyond just a couple weeks on the calendar.
This year, the damning stat is that between today and 30 December, there will be nine Big Bash games and 10 A-League games, yet just two NBL games.
An ASG would have bumped that up to a whopping three!
If you dig deeper, it gets worse. For example, New Zealand – after such a positive crowd last week – don’t play at home again until 23 January.
There are a lot of minor tweaks the NBL can make to improve its product, but better capitalising on the summer school holidays is right up there. The free hits and free kicks to rivals have to stop.
The schedule is almost inviting viewers to turn their attention elsewhere, and this is at a time when viewers shouldn’t have to look away.
The already tight finals race took a few more twists last weekend.
You just know the competition is tracking well when last year’s champions are in last place.
Plus, there’s a couple of guys in James Ennis and Sam Young that are giving people convincing reasons to tune in.
Yet, there will be fans over the next couple of weeks for whom, through no fault of their own, the NBL slips out of sight and out of mind. Hopefully, this can be rectified for next season.