The arenas of the NBA will be filled again next season, when the league may also normalize its schedule, commissioner Adam Silver predicted Saturday.
However, Silver warned that all plans in this regard depend on sustained progress in the fight against coronavirus.
There are no plans for the league to host games abroad next season, exhibition or regular season, Silver said.
This means that recent trips by NBA teams to China, Japan, India or Mexico will not be repeated until 2022, at the earliest.
Otherwise, many things would return to normal in the league, which sees a return to the 82-game schedule for the season, beginning in October and concluding in June.
“I’m pretty optimistic right now that we can get started on time,” Silver said in Atlanta, during his annual press conference before the All-Star Game. “Almost half of our teams have fans in their arenas now, and if vaccines continue at the current rate and remain as effective as they have been against the virus and its variants, we hope to have relatively full arenas next season as well.”
The league canceled 171 games last season because of the pandemic. That was one of the reasons the US $ 1.00 million revenue target was missed. This season, there will be about 150 games less than the usual total, which will generate more financial losses.
All teams plan to play 72 games, instead of the usual 82. Only half of the ensembles admit fans in their arenas.
And the teams that have opened their doors have done so for only a small percentage of normal capacity.
“The previous season and the current one have required a significant investment on the part of the owners of the teams,” explained Silver. “They accept that. The players will end up accepting a pay cut this season because they are partners with the league and the teams in revenue.
“League and team executives have accepted salary cuts. But I think … we feel very fortunate to work under these circumstances, and I perceive that the players feel the same ”.
Silver’s conference was virtual this time around for the first time, due to the pandemic and the league’s sanitation protocols.
A year ago, Silver’s conference was held in Chicago, on All-Star weekend and about a month before March 11, 2020, when the NBA decided to discontinue the season, following news that Rudy Gobert, of the Utah Jazz, had tested positive for COVID-19.
On that occasion, Silver warned that “a great national health crisis, if not global, was looming in relation to the virus.”
But the commissioner did not sound an alarm signal on that occasion. Less than a month later, the coronavirus began to dominate all aspects of life in the world.
“One thing that we have all understood in the last year is that the virus has firm control of everything,” said the commissioner.
