As we get closer to the Fiesta Bowl kick-off to crown a national champion (my money’s on the green and yellow, by 6, if anyone’s asking), it saddens me to think that football is coming to an end. In about a month, the professionals will be done as well, leaving us with basketball and hockey.
While pondering this sad fact, it gave me a great idea – why not start one of these sports later in the season when people will actually care and watch?
Hockey and basketball tend to play in the same arena, which means venues are trying to schedule 82 games in about an eight month span. In that time, they also have to contend with concerts and any other sporting events, whether minor league, high school, etc. Hockey is played on ice, and ice forms when it's cold, so it makes sense that hockey would be played in the winter. Why not then start the hockey season on Halloween? It makes sense since these guys have faces that look like masks... these jokes write themselves...
Stanley Cup Winner, Jason Voorhees
That leaves more nights open for the arenas to hold other events and they can front load the schedule before basketball begins. Plus, not to continue with the meteorological lesson, but hockey is played on ice, and it should be cold out when you play hockey, not 95, and you’re worried about the ice melting. The hockey season should begin on October 31st and end on April 15th--that’s 167 days to play 82 regular season games and about 17 rounds of playoff games. That gives hockey its own time to shine without having to deal with the NBA.
So then what to do with basketball? To appease Phil Jackson, Stan Van Gundy, LeBron James, and anyone else who’s ever bitched about playing NBA games on Christmas, begin the season, wait for it…after Christmas. Start on the first day of the year, though I’m sure inevitably someone would take issue with that, possibly impeding on drinking the night before. Plus, the joke has been made enough times that Shaq or any other decent player doesn’t begin playing the season until January, so why not give the fans all their money's worth and start when the players actually start playing?
Once the summer comes around, there isn’t a whole lot going on. It’s baseball, baseball, and so much speculation on the upcoming NFL season, that it’s the worst time of the year for sports. That’s why you begin on the first of January and end on the 4th of July. (Don’t you love these nice round days, that way you always know when things end and begin, besides sports fans live for
numbers.) Then you not only appease the networks giving them something else to air, but the fans as well and it gives the NBA its own platform.
As it stands, the NHL and NBA are grouped together because they start around the same time, end around the same time, and are played in many of the same arenas. If you split up the leagues, it gives them individuality and breaks them up from football. No matter how good the games are, the NHL and NBA aren’t taking viewers away from football. Besides, the sports world shouldn’t ever have down time.
