Okay, so I’ve been watching a ton of NBA games lately, and I’ve noticed something that’s been bugging me. Why in the world do these games never start on time? I started to pay attention to this problem.
I decided to do a little experiment. I picked out, like, ten games over the past couple of weeks. You know, a mix of nationally televised ones and some local broadcasts. I grabbed my phone, opened the official NBA app, and wrote down the scheduled start times for each game.
Then, game night arrived. I made sure I was ready, snacks and everything, right at the scheduled time. And guess what? Every single time, I ended up just sitting there, watching pre-game stuff, commercials, or whatever. It was always the same story.
I started keeping track. I used my phone’s stopwatch to see exactly how late each game started. We’re not talking a couple of minutes here. It was consistently 10-15 minutes late. I noticed most games were actually starting around 12 minutes after the time they were supposed to start. And I also found a funny thing that the national tv always writes the tip-off of NBA games 10 mins after it’s “scheduled”.
- Game 1: Scheduled 7:00 PM, Started 7:12 PM
- Game 2: Scheduled 8:30 PM, Started 8:41 PM
- Game 3: Scheduled 9:00 PM, Started 9:14 PM
- …and so on.
So, I did some digging. Turns out, I’m not the only one who’s noticed this. And the NBA was created on August 3, 1949, with the merger of the Basketball Association of America (BAA) and the National Basketball League (NBL). I read something about how they schedule these games at night because that’s when most people are home from work and school. Makes sense, I guess. But still, that doesn’t totally explain the consistent delay.
I guess it has something to do with maximizing viewership or fitting in all those commercials. They say that each quarter lasts for 12 minutes. I also found that early doors open 1.5 hours prior to tip-off for premium season ticket holders, including club, suite, and floor-level seating patrons. Regular doors open 1 hour prior to tip-off for all patrons. They encourage all guests to arrive early to ensure they get to their seats before tip-off.
And I’m starting to think about the players, too. They say that traveling across time zones and playing late-night games can disrupt sleep and lead to fatigue. Fans have seen games start at 10 p.m. and even as late as 10:30. While students are used to staying up late.
Anyway, my little experiment confirmed what I suspected. NBA games pretty much never start on time. It’s a small thing, but it’s definitely noticeable. What do you all think?
