These Games Are On Way Too Late
By: Jamie Samuelsen
My morning routine never changes.
I wake up. I make some coffee. Check the Internet. Then I go upstairs to get my kids ready for school. My two daughters are usually still sleeping (Yep, we're lucky. We groomed some damn good sleepers.) My six-year old son Josh is wide-awake and usually waiting for me at his bedroom door. He doesn't say good morning. He doesn't go in for a hug. Instead he repeats the same question that he asks each morning when he waits at his door – "Dad, who won the games last night?"
Like a lot of your sons out there, Josh has become a huge sports fan over the last six months. To say that this is an exciting development in my life would be the understatement of the Century. You want your kids to be healthy and happy, whatever they decide to be. But if you're a sports fan, you want your kid to love sports. And Josh loves sports.
He'll watch every pitch of every Tigers game if we let him. He'll watch every minute of every Red Wings game too. If given the control of the television, he'd happily flip around to college baseball, college softball or tennis. I caught him watching a football game on the Big Ten Network from last fall. When I told him that the game was already played, he just shrugged his shoulders and told me that he didn't care.
But there's one thing Josh doesn't do all that much – and that's stay up late. Bedtime is pretty hard and fast at about 8:30 P.M., which means that he didn't get to watch the Stanley Cup Finals, which ended last night well after bedtime on the east coast. And he sure as heck won't get to watch the NBA Finals, which start tonight while most west coasters are eating dinner.
I know all the reasons behind TV times and TV nights. The NBA prefers to show games on weeknights instead of weekends because more people are home sitting on their couches. And they prefer the primetime slots to the midday slots because of ad revenue and views. And I know this is a pointless, silly and laughable question to ask – but what about the fans?
The NFL is far and away the most popular game in America. We all know all the reasons why (the shorter schedule, the gambling, Fantasy Football, the violence). But I've long contended that another reason why the game is so popular to the masses is because it's available to all the generations. If the kids want to watch the Lions, guess what? The Lions are on at 1 PM on Sunday. If the kids want to watch the playoffs, guess what? Many of the playoff games are over by 7 or 7:30 on Sunday night. And if the kids want to watch the Super Bowl, it starts at 6:30 on Super Sunday and is over by 10 or so. Sure it's late, but that may be a worthwhile exception.
But not the other sports. The Stanley Cup was raised last night at about 11 local time. The NBA trophy will probably come out at about midnight. Same for the World Series trophy which always is a late night affair. It always seemed illogical to me to have the most magical moments of any season on well after much of America is tucked in for the night.
I'll be watching the Heat and the Thunder tonight because I love the NBA and I'm fascinated by the LeBron James/Heat storyline. My son would kill to stay up to watch the game because he loves basketball and wants to know who will win the title. The NBA will count it's millions and celebrate it's ratings thanks to LeBron and Dwyane Wade and Kevin Durant. But they'd be smart to think about starting one of the weekend games at 6, or starting the weeknight games earlier. Because as they build their empire and fund it with ad dollars, they're also pushing away a young generation of fans.
The best marketing tool for any league is to show their product to the masses. And when the masses are tired or already asleep, it's a very, very tough sell. I know that Josh would really appreciate it.
