This year’s National Basketball League Finals between the defending champion Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers has been such a bonanza, that the league has decided to extend the series to a best of nine, instead of the current seven.
Ahead of tonight’s Game Seven, NBA commissioner Adam Silver announced the sudden change of format. “This year’s finals have been just amazing. The fans are just loving this, watching two stellar teams battling each other, the drama of the matchup between LeBron and Steph, Cleveland fending off elimination twice to get to the big game tonight. Seven games are just not enough for something this exciting.
“And it’s not about the ratings. It’s about the competition.”
Sports economists point to money as being behind this sudden change. “TV ratings are at an all-time high, surpassing even last year’s record breaking finals, “ according to Wharton Professor Michael Greene. “We are talking 1990’s Michael Jordan – Chicago Bulls kind of numbers. This has been a huge boost to ABC and its parent company Disney, as well as to the league in general. Tickets are for sale for tonight’s game in the secondary market in the tens of thousands of dollars per ticket. The NBA would be a fool to not try to get a piece of this.”
The players were at pre-game morning meetings when the announcement was made and were unable to be reached for comment, but it is unlikely that they will be very happy about extending an already very long season, as well considerations for those already committed to play for the U.S Olympic Team in Rio in August. Perhaps they can take some comfort in the Commissioner’s closing three sentences of the announcement. “It only seems fair that we give the fans what they want, more exciting basketball action. In fact, NBA, we could keep this going well into July. Well, unless Cleveland wins tonight, then we are done.”
