As you’re probably aware, the Golden State Warriors are currently 57-6 and have a legit shot at beating the NBA’s single-season win record. They’re the sort of once-in-a-lifetime superteam that has captured the imaginations of diehards and casual fans alike, and I would very much like to watch them break the 72-win mark.
But I can’t. And this is because the NBA is fucking stupid. See for yourself…
Of the Warriors’ remaining games, only one is airing on national broadcast television. And all of the ESPN and TNT broadcasts start at 10:30 p.m. Eastern Time. My time. This is unacceptable. The NBA struck gold and has decided to bury it under the fucking porch. For years now, this league has dry-humped the corpse of the Jordan Bulls and searched high and low to find a team (and player) that could match them in popularity, a feat not even the Kobe Lakers or LeBron Heat could duplicate. And lo and behold, here is the perfect team to finally pull it off, and the NBA is gonna fuck it all up. I’m not staying up until 1 a.m. to watch that shit. That’s craziness.
Say what you will about the dictatorial nature of the NFL and college football, but one pleasant side effect of all that crass authoritarianism is that football execs have no problem at all moving teams around for sake my lazy viewing habits. If Roger Goodell ran the NBA, the Warriors would be on national TV right now. This instant. He would stick them with a cattle prod and trot them out at a decent hour and ignore the plaintive wails of local tech bros who don’t want to cut out of work at 4 p.m. PT to attend a home game. The reason the Bulls were the Bulls was because everyone could watch them.
And yes, this is a massive case of East Coast bias. But here’s the breakdown of the U.S. population by time zone…
Eastern: 47.0%
Central: 32.9%
Mountain: 5.4%
Pacific: 14.1%
Alaska and Hawaii: 0.6%
Nearly 80 percent of us live in either the Eastern or Central time zones. No wonder we’re biased. We SHOULD be. We have a controlling majority of the viewing delegates. As it stands now, the average Warriors game ends well outside the range of Dad Hours for most fans. Now I know that the CBA allows for only a certain number of national games per team (lousy unions … THEY’RE KILLING ‘MERICA!), and the NBA really wants you to buy League Pass, but fuck all that. I’m not interested in “fairness” or “laws”. I just wanna watch Steph Curry play somewhere other than on fucking Vine. I don’t even care if they play a shit team like the Sixers. That game is on at 8! Put it on ABC! Pre-empt Trump selling steaks on the news networks to air it! Why are you hiding this from me, Adam Silver? My kids can’t watch it either! WHY DO YOU HATE CHILDREN.
Again, I know this could end up screwing over local fans. But if your average Warriors fan is anything like our own Kevin Draper, I’m 100 percent fine with it. I am a selfish and lazy sports fan and I demand that the sporting universe conform itself to MY schedule. You only have so many of these Warriors games left, NBA. If you’re not doing everything you can to get as many people as possible to watch them, don’t blame me when your league continues to run second-fiddle to the morons over at the NFL.
And if you put their playoff games on late, you should be lashed.
