VARIOUS changes, some of which are considered cosmetic, are to be introduced when the 72th renewal of the U.S. National Basketball Association unwraps on October 17 (October 18, Manila time) – the earliest to start a regular season in 37 years – with the Cleveland Cavaliers hosting the Boston Celtics and the reigning league titlist Golden State Warriors facing the Houston Rockets in an East vs. East and West vs. West doubleheader.
The start is eight days earlier than last season and the earliest since 1980-81 – which commenced action on October 10, 1980 in a 23-team league.
The NBA extended the length of the season in order to reduce the number of consecutive games, an issue that the players have long complained about.
For the first time in NBA history, the regular sked does not have any team playing four games in five nights and it no longer has stretches of 18 games over 30 days. These are concessions from the NBA to cut down on player injuries and curb the irritable pattern by some teams of resting key players during marquee or nationally-televised games.
Back-to-back slates have been reduced to an average of 14.4 per team, down from 16.3 per team from a year ago. No team has more than 16 back-to-backs in 2017-18. In all, 40 sets of back-to-backs have been eliminated from last season. Play dates of five games in seven nights have been reduced to just 40 instances across the league (1.3 per team), down from 2016-17 when it was on schedule 90 times (three per team).
There has been an increase in weekend games from 549 to 568, with much of the upgrade coming on Saturdays. Previously, the NBA had avoided Saturdays and Sunday afternoon games during the National Football League (NFL) season to evade conflicts.
Note that for the first time ever, the players’ union was part of the scheduling process aimed at both player safety and to cut down the amount of games where teams rest healthy players.
Before we tackle on the other new measures to be instituted (such as rules changes), here are the cosmetic changes to the 2017-18 NBA campaign:
The world’s largest supplier of athletic footwear and apparel Nike, Inc. officially became the NBA’s official on-court apparel provider on October 1, replacing longtime provider Adidas (which bought previous league provider Reebok before that). The 53-year-old Portland, Oregon-based company, which takes its name from Nike, the Greek goddess of victory, says the latest NBA jersey is a modification of those worn by gold medal-winning Team USA during the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and is lighter than previous NBA jerseys and more flexible, better designed to move with the player.
Other notable changes in the uniform jerseys include a raised Nike swoosh logo, bigger armholes and tweaked collar shape. According to Nike, the new jerseys are partly made out of recycled plastic bottles and that sweat on the latest version will dry 15 percent faster than those jerseys made by Adidas.
The Nike emblem will be added to the jerseys and shorts of all NBA teams, with the exception of the Charlotte Hornets, who will carry the Jordan Brand logo because Michael Jordan owns the team.
As part of Nike’s deal with the NBA, the 30 member teams need not stick to the traditional white home jersey. They have the option to select another color as default home uniform.
The NBA is scrapping the standard “home” and “road” uniform designations for the first time ever. Under the new scheme, teams can wear any uniform they like at home, with the road team required to choose a contrasting design.
Each team will now have at least four uniform “editions” – Association (standard white uniform), Icon (standard colored uniform), an edition “inspired by the community,” (so-called “pride” jerseys like the Portland Trail Blazers’ “Rip City” design), and an edition “inspired by the athlete’s mindset.”
Moreover, eight teams will have a Classic Edition that “celebrates some of the most iconic uniforms in league history” or more commonly known as retro or throwback jerseys.
Meanwhile, 17 teams have struck jersey sponsorship deals to put a corporate logo on their uniforms. They include Atlanta (Sharecare, contract is worth between $2.5 million and $10 million per annum), Boston (General Electric, worth more than $7 million annually), Brooklyn (Infor, $8 million annually), Cleveland (Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, more than $10 million annually), Denver (Western Union Bank, between $5 million and $10 million per year), Detroit (Flagstar Bank, between $5 million and $10 million per year), Los Angeles Lakers, e-commerce site Wish), Milwaukee (Harley-Davidson, between $2.5 million and $6 million per annum), Minnesota (Fitbit, between $3 million and $8 million annually), Orlando (Disney, between $5 million and $10 million annually), Philadelphia (website-publishing company Stubhub, $5 million a year), Sacramento (Blue Diamond Almonds, $5 million yearly), Toronto (Sun Life, more than Canadian $5 million a year), Utah (Qualtrics, 5 for the Fight charity, $4 million annually), Golden State (the San Francisco-based Japanese tech giant Rakuten, $20 million annually for three years for the most lucrative jersey sponsorship), and New York (New York City-based web content company Squarespace, contract not known).
More than 18 months ago, the NBA Board of Governors approved a three-year trial program for the addition of a company patch on team uniforms starting with the 2017-18 season. According to NBA commissioner Adam Silver, it’s one way for the league to compete in the “global marketplace.”
“Jersey sponsorships provide deeper engagement with partners looking to build a unique association with our teams and the additional investment will help grow the game in exciting new ways,” said the 55-year-old Silver, who took over the NBA reins from David Stern on February 1, 2014. “We’re always thinking about innovative ways the NBA can remain competitive in a global marketplace, and we are excited to see the results of this three-year trial.”
The corporate logo will appear on the upper-left corner of a team’s jersey and will be 2.5-by-2.5 inches in size.
It’s just fine that teams have been allowed to make money from jersey sponsorship deals. According to NBA financial reports, 14 of the NBA’s 30 clubs lost money last season before collecting revenue-sharing payouts, and nine finished in the red even after securing those payments. This was in spite of the cash splash resulting from the NBA’s national television deals amounting to $24 billion over nine years starting with the 2016-17 season.
Next time: Details of the rules changes to be implemented during the NBA’s 2017-18 regular wars.
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