NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said last Friday that the league was not in a position to resume the 2019-20 season, leaving fans guessing as to when they can expect games to return.
Ed Desser, president of Desser Media and a former league executive, said holding games without fans is still "the most likely thing to happen" but noted that the people shouldn't underestimate how much coordination that would require.
"Even playing without fans is not a trivial undertaking," he told Cheddar. "You still need to get maybe 1,000 people in a particular location. You need to deal with meals. You need to deal with practice."
The game of basketball in particular presents difficulties when compared to other sports. Golf or Nascar racing or even baseball involve much less direct contact than basketball, Desser added.
While the league would like to see a champion named by this summer, it's uncertain if that will be possible.
"I'd be surprised if it could be done by late June or July, frankly," Desser said. "That's certainly what they'd like to do, but of course they don't want to be in a position of endangering the player or other participant, endangering the fans certainly. So it's a difficult tussle."
The announcement of a further delay was another big disappointment for the league this season, which saw the deaths of former NBA great Kobe Bryant and former commissioner David Stern and a potentially costly feud with China sparked by a tweet from Daryl Morey, general manager of the Houston Rockets, in support of Hong Kong protesters.
"Commissioners are not just there to hand out the trophy at the end of the year," Desser said. "It's a core competency, really, to do crisis management. That's what Adam is doing today."
He noted that the commissioner's job requires a careful balance of multiple different stakeholders.
"The unique thing about a commissioner in sports is you're running a business, but you're also responsible to the players, responsible to the owners, responsible to the press and other forms of media, responsible to the arena owners, responsible to the fans, and responsible, or at least have to deal with, the government," he said.
"It's not an ordinary kind of CEO job. You have to be pretty good at dealing with controversies."
Nvidia on Wednesday became the first public company to reach a market capitalization of $5 trillion. The ravenous appetite for the Silicon Valley company’s chips is the main reason that the company’s stock price has increased so rapidly since early 2023.
Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at S&P Global, breaks down September’s CPI print and inflation trends, explaining what it means for markets.
A big-screen adaptation of the anime “Chainsaw Man” has topped the North American box office, beating a Springsteen biopic and “Black Phone 2.” The movie earned $17.25 million in the U.S. and Canada this weekend. “Black Phone 2” fell to second place with $13 million. Two new releases, the rom-com “Regretting You” and “Springsteen — Deliver Me From Nowhere,” earned $12.85 million and $9.1 million, respectively. “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” is based on the manga series about a demon hunter. It's another win for Sony-owned Crunchyroll, which also released a “Demon Slayer” film last month that debuted to a record $70 million.
The Federal Aviation Administration says flights departing for Los Angeles International Airport were halted briefly due to a staffing shortage at a Southern California air traffic facility. The FAA issued a temporary ground stop at one of the world’s busiest airports on Sunday morning soon after U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy predicted that travelers would see more flights delayed as the nation’s air traffic controllers work without pay during the federal government shutdown. The hold on planes taking off for LAX lasted an hour and 45 minutes and didn't appear to cause continued problems. The FAA said staffing shortages also delayed planes headed to Washington, Chicago and Newark, New Jersey on Sunday.
Boeing workers at three Midwest plants where military aircraft and weapons are developed have voted to reject the company’s latest contract offer and to continue a strike that started almost three months ago. The strike by about 3,200 machinists at the plants in the Missouri cities of St. Louis and St. Charles, and in Mascoutah, Illinois, is smaller in scale than a walkout last year by 33,000 Boeing workers who assemble commercial jetliners. The president of the International Association of Machinists says Sunday's outcome shows Boeing hasn't adequately addressed wages and retirement benefits. Boeing says Sunday's vote was close with 51% of union members opposing the revised offer.
The stunning indictment that led to the arrest of more than 30 people — including Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and other NBA figures — has drawn new scrutiny of the booming business of sports betting in the U.S. The multibillion-dollar industry has made it easy for sports fans — and even some players — to wager on everything from the outcome of games to that of a single play with just a few taps of a cellphone. But regulating the rapidly-growing industry has proven to be a challenge. Professional sports leagues’ own role in promoting gambling has also raised eyebrows.
