Sources tell ESPN Friday, October 30th, is going to be the deadline to discuss all of the modifications to the collective bargaining agreement for the 2021 season, and the draft is scheduled for November 18.

I want to bring in Brian Wynne Horse, who co authored this report with Woes and Zach Lowe.

Brian.

How realistic is it starting the MBA season on Christmas Day?

Clear your schedule.

I think there's a very strong chance that is going to happen.

In fact, I think it's gonna happen even before Christmas because you can not wanna have ring night on Christmas Day.

So I think there's a possibility that it could actually start slightly before Christmas.

This is a big pivot from what Adam Silver was talking about just less than a month ago with the finals, when he talked about how he wanted to play an 82 game season with fans in the stands at all arenas.

But as the situation has unfolded, Thean NBA owners have reevaluated.

They realized how important Christmas Day is, and then they're meeting today.

They have made the recommendation to begin on Christmas or slightly before, with a slightly reduced season, perhaps about 72 games, finishing on time in, UH, you know middle A June and back on schedule for 21 22.

All right, I mentioned the October 30 of C B.

A deadline just a moment ago.

What is the biggest hurdle to getting a new collecting bargain agreement done by then?

Can you imagine Richard getting drafted by your team and then be expected to basically ship out the next day and start camp within about 7 to 10 days?

Can you imagine signing as a free agent and having to potentially report to a new team within 72 hours to begin camp?

Because that's what we're looking at here.

They've got to negotiate with the players and agreement to get this started so fast.

They have promised the players that they would give them an eight week head up to the start of the season.

Well, eight weeks is in the middle to the end of next week toward Christmas, and so this is going to get decided quick on.

There's gonna be a lot of players impacted, and it's not going to be pleasant.

But the expectation in me talking with the union is that there's a good chance this is going to get done.

So I say to fans, Prepare for N B A basketball on Christmas Day.

All right, let's go, Brian, thank you so much for joining us today.

Great report.

I want to bring a mean and perk back into this mix.

Perk.

I wanna ask you, is playing on Christmas Day.

Is that juice of it?

Is it worth coming back this quickly for a very, very short off season?

Absolutely.

And look, the players knew this when they agreed, when the players association agreed to playing in the bubble, that it could be a quick turnaround.

And that's what's happening right now.

We have toe have basketball on Christmas Day.

It's a no brainer, and look, they have a lot of teams that hadn't played since March since the pandemic.

You remember so Ah, lot of guys had a lot of time off.

So at the end of the day, they knew that this one could be a possibility that if you reach the finals and played in the championship that you will have a short off season.

So I'm all in for Christmas Day games.

Let's make it happen.

No, I think Richard, they were talking a big talk about wanting fans in the seats and all that.

I think they just come to the realization with the scientists happened.

Right now, that's not realistic.

And so we're going to start a season without having people in the buildings.

Then we might as well get it started sooner rather than later.

There's no purpose in waiting to start with the same circumstances that we could start with on Christmas, and the other part of it is I feel like the N B is always afraid that the NFL is coming to steal Christmas from them.

We have Christmas, they have Thanksgiving in college.

Football has New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, and we don't want to give up that prime real estate.

If you leave the door open, someone is gonna move in and start squatting on it.

So I see the sense of urgency there from the league.

Yeah, it was so much talk about ratings.

And then there's revenue like that's just such a huge day for for the N B A.

I just can't see.

It's It's an American tradition at this point in time.

But perk I wanted to ask you.

ESPN is reporting.

The league is starting is open to starting the season without fans in the stands.

How big of a deal is that for the players?

What's not?

I mean, that got used to have a lot of players got used to have been playing in the bubble.

But you know, fans make the MBA without fans.

There's no MBA, so it'll be interesting to see.

I mean, obviously watching the NFL.

We're watching some games.

Some arenas don't have fans.

Some do.

So it'll be interesting to see how the MBA and Adam Silver ah, figure things out.

But you know, fans is would bring the joy to the game of basketball and you fight toe.

Have home court and you wanna be at home and the fairs around the or you wanna be on the road playing in the hostile environment so it may play a huge part.

Yeah, you know, Richard, they estimate the income from people coming to games, tickets and parking and concessions and all that to be someone the neighborhood, 35 40% of league income.

So it's a big deal to say we're going to start and we're going to play without these people in the building.

Having said that, there's a lot of income that comes from TV, whether it's local TV deals with individual teams or the national TV deals that get paid out to everywhere to the league and distributed to all the teams.

So again, the idea of playing the games and having good ratings might outweigh the need toe.

Wait until you can have people in the stands as far as the quality of play itself.

I think per created on the head.

Most of the guys you know 22 teams played in a bubble without fans in the stands and guess what?

The basketball was fine.

The basketball was great.

We didn't have any drop off in intensity.

We didn't have any drop off in execution.

So while we always fans were in the building.

This is going to get there at some point for right now.

Let's just play basketball.

Yeah, no, I agree with you guys.

I'm not saying that Lakers wouldn't have won the championship.

I'm just saying I would have been very interested to see how the brackets would have played out if there was home court advantage and those things that players were playing on.

But we're gonna have to wait and see.

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