NBA financial crisis: League stands to lose 1 billion if it restarts in January

The NBA has been going back and forth on the decision on when to start the 2020-21 season for some time. To date, no decision has been made on the actual start date, other than the promise of "at least three weeks notice." However, if they start as late as the third week of January as originally projected, the league is looking at a collective revenue loss of US$1 billion (770,000,000 GBP).

The coronavirus pandemic is not over. In some places in the United States, it is just starting or in the middle of their second wave. However, the NBA is taking the bubble-environment solution that they used to finish the previous season off the table.

To ensure proper preparation, the league wanted to start the 2020-2021 season in January of 2021 (effectively making it just the 2021 season). But apparently, internal financial analysts are asking the league to start as early as December 22 to take advantage of the Christmas season, which is historically the league's most profitable season.

According to ESPN, missing the profitable Christmas season could result in over 500 million to 1 billion dollars of lost revenue. The league already suffered massive losses last season due to the long hiatus and shortened schedule. Losing more will make it hard for franchise teams to recover, especially with the players' union refusing to make further concessions on their salaries and profit-sharing agreements.

However, merely moving the start date in a calendar in the league office is harder than it seems. The logistics of preparing the arenas for games is a monumental task, even bigger than creating a bubble environment. To ensure that arenas that may host NBA games as often as once or twice a week don't turn into coronavirus breeding grounds, the league needs to coordinate, plan, implement, inspect, rinse and repeat safety measures on all venues before and during the season.

A lot of NBA cities are also still prohibiting public gatherings. Working and gaining approval from the local government is a challenge that the NBA has not yet begun to tackle due to the uncertainty of the start date and in what form the 2020-2021 season will eventually be.

With only seven weeks left until December 22nd, the NBA is running out of options.