Preparations for the draft will continue even though practice facilities will be closed indefinitely starting on Friday, according to Bobby Marks of ESPN. Scouts will do their work remotely by watching tape, doing background checks, and holding weekly conference calls. There remains plenty of uncertainty regarding the date of the draft, whether a combine will eventually be held and if individual workouts will be conducted at some point (Twitter links).
We have more coronavirus-related news:
- NBA teams are still receiving payments from their national broadcast partners, AT&T Inc.’s Turner and Walt Disney Co.’s ABC and ESPN, Scott Soshnick of Bloomberg reports. Those agreements pay the league about $2.6 billion annually. However, the value lost by the networks due to the suspension of play must be made up over the life of the deals, which run through the 2024/25 season. The exact value must be negotiated, and might include more games or additional advertising, Soshnick continues. Disney stands to lose approximately $700MM in ad revenue should the season be canceled, while Turner — which also holds the rights to NCAA men’s basketball championship — could lose $960MM in ad revenue.
- The league began making preparations in late January for the spread of the coronavirus, Ramona Shelburne of ESPN details. The NBA sent at least three memos to team officials in February, urging them to prepare for the pandemic in North America. Those preparations set in motion a series of protocols that had the NBA and its teams at the front of the line for testing by the time the Jazz’s Rudy Gobert became the first player that was diagnosed with COVID-19.
Just like mlb the show, buy an NBA game, update rosters, let it play computer vs. computer if you’re dying for some NBA action.
How about you check on your neighbors, see what
you can do to help all the people trying to help the vulnerable (first responders and service/gig economy staff) and we forget about games for awhile? The NBA is a game, this is real life…..
We are literally being told to stay in our homes. Video games are vital right now.
Until they quite letting their dogs crap in my yard, they will not be checked on.
HA
1 Billion in losses for TNT. I can’t comprehend. It’s not like the companies paying for ads will direct any towards emergency prevention.