NBA at Walt Disney World

Oh no. I can barely wait until late October during normal years. And usually have summer league, the draft, WNBA and free agency craziness to get me through the summer. Ugh. At this point, I'll take whatever I can get.
Well the season wouldn’t end till August. The December start has been talked about for a while. That way there be less overlap with the NFL. The downside is the playoffs would be held in July and August during what is traditionally prime family vacation time.
 
Your comments weren't vague. Anyone who follows the NBA knows what you are referring to. You were insinuating that comments made by LeBron would lead to potential bad PR for Disney. "the NBA would be the absolute worst for Disney from a PR standpoint - all you have to do is google NBA and/or LeBron James (the face of the league) and their relationship with certain (basically one) countries -" There was no misunderstanding.



They are talking about possibly going right into some kind of playoff scenario, so the season may be shortened. I would imagine they have to keep in mind when they want to finish this season so they can get ready to start the next without too much of an impact on 2020-2021? I've read reports that said that some of the players on teams who are not in play-off contention do not want to come back this season and just want to wait until 2020-2021. I can't say I blame them. I can't imagine how much physical work will be involved to get ready to start again in July.

There are many that feel (and have posted the same) that Disney putting the NBA (or any other sports league, for that matter) ahead of the public, will not sit well with so many people -
 
Interestingly, club level rooms at all resorts are unavailable for booking until the middle of September. There were club level rooms at all resorts showing for July & August until today. Strange coincidence?
 


Interestingly, club level rooms at all resorts are unavailable for booking until the middle of September. There were club level rooms at all resorts showing for July & August until today. Strange coincidence?

I don't think so. There is no way they are spreading anyone involved in the NBA/WWOS activities around several different resorts, possibly interacting with the general public. If you look at the reports on what they are planning to do in terms of testing anyone involved, it's very detailed. There is no way they are going to have NBA players/staff/participants risk any type of interaction with the general public. They are literally talking about creating an NBA bubble.

I speculate they are pulling CL because there is no way they can manage that with social distancing. The CL lounges are essentially buffets with a lot of communal items - that doesn't exactly work in a pandemic. Maybe they will limit capacity at CL? Or do away with it altogether?
 
There are many that feel (and have posted the same) that Disney putting the NBA (or any other sports league, for that matter) ahead of the public, will not sit well with so many people -

I think people are conflating these issues. Disney is a gigantic operation. I'm sure they are capable of dealing with both the NBA deal and working on opening to the public simultaneously. They operate for the general public while managing large conventions and sporting events year-round. I'm not sure why people are assuming that somehow the NBA deal is holding up general park operations. The NBA will not be setting foot inside a theme park.
 


Geez there were a lot of posts in the last 8 hours to catch up on (number of pages doubled since this afternoon):
I don't think it's just an operational issue at WDW that this would impact. Disney trying to get the NBA and MLS affects other parts of the Disney business. Getting them up and going will help with advertising across networks and other income streams. I wonder if it doesn't make business sense to make sure these events happen rather than opening Parks & Resorts to "regular folks".
Just to add to the advertising point: last year's NBA finals (went 6 games, televised on ABC) generated $266 million in ad revenue.
. . .
Having no idea of the proposed deal with the NBA, so who knows what this deal could mean for the future of NBA playoff tv rights. Perhaps exclusive Disney+ “Hardknocks” themed show. There are millions if not billions in ad/tv revenue and potential down road impact on ESPN, ABC, and/or Disney+. . .
This actually gave me a light bulb moment I hadn't thought about with following all of this and have not heard mentioned by any of the NBA coverage I've heard:

Adam Silver (NBA Commissioner) has been pushing the idea of trying to create some type of in-season tournament. If this goes well enough for the league and for Disney, perhaps it becomes a neutral site tournament held at Disney each year. If that could be the case, this could be big for both the NBA and Disney.
Maybe. How many fans does the NBA have? But the point is they could do both.

If they are staying closed through the season anyway, and want to use this as a good excuse, then ok. But I think they’ll open the parks even with the NBA
All speculation on my part, but I think they may be looking at an east and a west venue and will go straight to a play-off scenario so eastern conference teams in Orlando and western conference teams in Las Vegas. That would cut your numbers in half making housing the players/staff/coaches, etc. even more doable, IMHO! . . .
Well, not just speculation, this had been reported as a possibility this week. It appears from today's announcements that they're looking at just Orlando now. As far as the straight to playoffs, I saw a report that the league was polling the owners today to get an idea of their preferences as to whether to play some regular season games, all of them, none of them, play-in tournament, etc.
Well that was a terrible headline, especially considering it's on NBA.com. It was just about the same statement that was reported everywhere earlier today - that they're "engaged in exploratory conversations." There was nothing "official" about them restarting the season in July at WDW.
I think basketball with no fans could lead to some cool stuff. But it depends on how much they let you hear. To be able to hear the players and coaches talk would be very interesting to me. Would love to hear some of trash talk that goes on.
Might need to move that to ESPN+ side of the paywall, though, because language
Just heard this discussed a few days ago on a podcast. I think it would be really cool, and it was their suggestion to just have a few minute delay on the broadcasts in order to censor any language (they also pointed out there'd have to be no live betting that is usually available on games).
There is talk of starting next season in December. If that goes well they may just keep it that way.
Bill Simmons has been pounding the drum on this since at least early this year, if not a lot longer (can't remember when he started pushing it) and just having the league go from December through August. I think it's the Christmas games that typically start bringing audiences anyway.
 
They are talking about possibly going right into some kind of playoff scenario, so the season may be shortened. I would imagine they have to keep in mind when they want to finish this season so they can get ready to start the next without too much of an impact on 2020-2021? I've read reports that said that some of the players on teams who are not in play-off contention do not want to come back this season and just want to wait until 2020-2021. I can't say I blame them. I can't imagine how much physical work will be involved to get ready to start again in July.

I’m a Knicks fan, so continuing the regular season just extends the misery of yet another terrible season. But they do have contractual obligations to uphold with the regional sports networks that they need to abide to. I’m not sure how many games they have left to achieve that, I think its only a handful, and not the full 14-16 games left. I’m sure teams like the Blazers, Pelicans, and Wizards dont want to throw in the towel while they still have a shot at the playoffs. Theres also the added factor of teams gunning for the lottery odds for the draft. There are 7 teams within 4 games of the 2nd most ping pong balls for the draft. Playoff seeding also matters to these players and teams. They’re not taking this as a bonus, this is still a season, and theres 19-20 teams that still want to win it all. So I don’t think they’re going to narrow much, if any at all of the remainder of the season. It’ll literally have been more than a full offseason’s worth of a break from the middle of march to when they play their next game in the end of July, so their bodies are going to need that regular season to get their bodies back into shape considering they dont have the benefit of having an actual offseason coinciding with a preseason.

And then you have the playoffs, which almost certainly wont be cut down because the longer a playoff series lasts, the more revenue Turner and Disney would receive. So moving series’ from 7 games to 5 or 3 is out of the question.

So if they play the remaining games of the regular season, 15 games per day between the 3 courts, it would take about 30 days to finish the regular season, and thats with no rest days, which is unlikely, even without the traveling. Add another 2.5 months for the playoffs, youre looking at a late October finish.
 
I think people are conflating these issues. Disney is a gigantic operation. I'm sure they are capable of dealing with both the NBA deal and working on opening to the public simultaneously. They operate for the general public while managing large conventions and sporting events year-round. I'm not sure why people are assuming that somehow the NBA deal is holding up general park operations. The NBA will not be setting foot inside a theme park.

I think the timing along with the post yesterday regarding the possible August opening, lead ppl to that conclusion
 
It’s not like the NBA is Tennis or something. No offense to tennis but the NBA is an international draw. More so than NFL and MLB even. Obviously the NFL is more popular here but the NBA is pretty popular across the globe.

Right, but what does that have to do with opening the parks? Disney has international appeal too, but nowhere near all of them would come to Disney this summer and no NBA fans would be going to games. So since it’s all about watching for the fans, they can do it anywhere. I think it’s a stretch to say they couldn’t host this with the parks open us all I’m really adamant about though. Whatever they do won’t upset me. I can wait til September. My school teacher wife with her first summer off since we moved here however.... I think she’s about to crack.
 
Gms were given a survey.

Go straight to the playoffs, 16 teams, seven-game series each round.
• A 72- or 76-game regular season, followed by the playoffs (GMs would vote on the number of games, teams have played between 63 and 67 so far).
• A “playoff plus” format of a play-in tournament for the final playoff seed or seeds. GMs were given several options for the number of teams (9 and 10 seeds, add 11 and 12 seeds?) and the format of the tournament.
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• How late should the NBA be willing to go with this season, with the range of options being from Labor Day weekend in early September through Nov. 1?
 
So, reading this from the NBA website now has me questioning that they will open to the public. I know noting is official yet but, I'm rethinking my July plans now.
Space won’t be an issue, even if Major League Soccer — which is also in talks to resume its season at Disney — is there at the same time as the NBA. The entire Disney complex is roughly 40 square miles, with nearly 24,000 hotel rooms owned or operated by Disney within the campus.
 
....
There's no housing at WWOS. Maybe he isn't aware of that? He's an NBA communications guy. Maybe by "site" he means the WDW site? I don't know - it will be interesting to see how this all shakes out.
I'm certain the NBA knows what will be available, and where.
We will get the details when the negotiations are completed.
 
To be clear, that isn't a corporate NBA article. It came from one team's (Portland Trailblazers) web team of reporters. They typically don't have any more information than what is typically publically known, or leaked information. They don't usually post any inside information, that's if they even had any to begin with.
 
Disney hosts conferences/conventions/sporting events all the time.
Those places take up hotel rooms and The Wide World of Sports facilities.

Depending on the structure they decide, at the peak you are likely looking at somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500 rooms and not having access to a facility you would never go to anyway.

The NBA coming will have zero impact on park opening dates
 
Right, but what does that have to do with opening the parks? Disney has international appeal too, but nowhere near all of them would come to Disney this summer and no NBA fans would be going to games. So since it’s all about watching for the fans, they can do it anywhere. I think it’s a stretch to say they couldn’t host this with the parks open us all I’m really adamant about though. Whatever they do won’t upset me. I can wait til September. My school teacher wife with her first summer off since we moved here however.... I think she’s about to crack.
I never said they couldn’t open with the NBA there. It’s going to change or impact the operations of the resort though.
 
But this article I posted a bit ago literally says WWOS is the “single site
https://www.nba.com/blazers/forward...Jd9zGWZiAK1uzwhvaZIvBGmSHc24DyBMrL4OXuv3Gq400
I'm pretty sure it's what we have been saying: a single site for the games (vs having half of the games in Vegas). WWoS does not have rooms. the rooms are at nearby Disney hotels.
Gms were given a survey.

Go straight to the playoffs, 16 teams, seven-game series each round.
• A 72- or 76-game regular season, followed by the playoffs (GMs would vote on the number of games, teams have played between 63 and 67 so far).
• A “playoff plus” format of a play-in tournament for the final playoff seed or seeds. GMs were given several options for the number of teams (9 and 10 seeds, add 11 and 12 seeds?) and the format of the tournament.
transparent-320x50.gif
• How late should the NBA be willing to go with this season, with the range of options being from Labor Day weekend in early September through Nov. 1?
Interesting. Thank you for posting. I didn't want to register to the site to read it. So, mid-July is when they would arrive, start practice. End of July, games would start. Games would end sometime between Labor Day and Nov 1.

1. I certainly hope they are not planning to stay closed throughout this NBA thing (for the record, I don't think they are; they can house everyone at CSR and keep them in the bubble, no need to keep the rest of the resorts and parks closed).

2. They are still discussing how tight the bubble needs to be.
 

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