Why the NBL won’t go back to 48 minute games

An NBL fan recently started a Facebook page entitled “101Ways to Fix the NBL”.  

Whilst their passion for the league was self-evident and their proactive approach to trying to generate discussion around ways to improve the league should be applauded, I had to do a double-take when I read the number one suggestion.

“#1 - Bring back 48 minute games.”

There is no doubt that the move to the 40-minute game prior to the 2009/10 NBL season has been contentious and even downright unpopular with a section of NBL fandom.  Some fans have been waging full-on campaigns to have the 48-minute game reintroduced. This vocal group misses no opportunity to call for the return to longer games on forums or social media, regardless of the actual topic being discussed.

Unfortunately for those who long for longer games, I’m here to tell them that there is little to no chance of the NBL reinstating the 48-minute game in the foreseeable future.

Putting aside for the moment the fact that the loss of eight minutes of game time is clearly not the single most pressing issue facing the NBL, let’s consider the reasons behind the switch to 40 minutes in the first place.

At the time, Basketball Australia made it very clear that it was making the changes to help better prepare Australian players for international basketball.

“The shortening of the game brings the NBL in line with the Olympic and World Championship model used by FIBA, the sport’s international governing body, as well as that used in nearly every professional league around the globe,” the BA media release said at the time.

Then-NBL Commission Chairperson Diane Smith-Gander also made it clear that the shorter format of the game significantly helped make the NBL more attractive to TV broadcasters and fans.

“The 40-minute format provides a much better format commercially, as it cleanly fits into a two-hour television slot which makes it more attractive to broadcasters,” Smith-Gander was quoted as saying in the release.  “It will also allow for earlier finishes which will be much more attractive to our key demographic of the family, especially around our midweek games.”

The proof of the pudding is however very much in the eating, so how have these two claims panned out in the three and a half seasons since the rules were changed?

On the broadcast front, despite the league very nearly imploding in 2009, Fox Sports stepped up to the plate to sign a new TV deal for the 2009/10 NBL season.  Then, in March 2010 the day that Australian basketball fans had been dreaming of for so long – the return of NBL to free-to-air TV – became a reality with Network Ten signing a contract to show the league on its new digital channel, One.

Stunningly, the deal was not a one-off, but a five-year commitment to a league which had seemed doomed just 12 months before.

Was the move from 48 minutes to 40 the reason Ten signed the contract? Of course not, as Ten needed content at the time for their new all-sport channel ONE, but it did help significantly in making the overall package more attractive to the free-to-air broadcaster.  When you consider that many traditional sports, including cricket, have started to introduce new short-format events, it makes sense to have your sport neatly fit into a tidy two-hour broadcast slot.

So what about the claim that the move to the 40-minute format would help make games more attractive to the public?

Given the league has increased its average attendance for the three straight years since the 48-minute game was abandoned and are on track for a fourth straight year of growth in 2012/13, the data would seem to indicate that, at the very least, fans have not been turned off by the loss of eight minutes of playing time.

The fact that NBL average attendance has grown 20% over the past three seasons and will likely grow further when the 2012/13 campaign is in the books (albeit helped significantly by the move to larger venues by a couple of teams) makes a mockery of those doomsaying 48-minute diehards who maintain that the league is dying because of what ultimately was a fairly minor rule adjustment.

Those selfsame critics maintain that the reduction in average scoring around the league which resulted from the loss of 10% of the total game time has driven crowds away. Quite clearly based on the facts (as opposed to emotional rhetoric) that is not the case, and in fact the opposite is true.

So the switch from 48 minutes to 40 has actually coincided with both basketball’s first free-to-air TV contract in around a decade and an increase in attendance. 

Hardly a compelling argument for changing back to the longer game, is it?

Devotees of the extended format do however have a long list of reasons as to why the NBL should return to the 48 minute format.  One of the most regularly raised is scoring. They point to the fact that the NBL scoring leader currently is averaging less than 20 points per game and maintain that it makes the league seem poor in comparison to the NBA, where Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant currently is averaging a league-high 30.1 points per game. 

The reality however is that there are just 10 players in the NBA currently averaging over 20 points per game, despite the fact that the league recognised as being the world’s best has almost four times as many players than NBL.

Another argument regularly used to point to the benefits of returning to 48 minutes is that the only players who suffer decreased court time due to the reduction in available minutes are the players most desperately needing to play – the development players.  Yet the reduction in overall playing time is also just as often quoted as robbing fans of the chance to see their favourite star players on court for longer, which directly contradicts that supposition.

Yes, there is eight minutes less game time to go around and ultimately that sees all players’ court time impacted. Coaches however continue do just what they have always done – that is, play who they think they need on the court to win the game at any given time, with one eye on ensuring they don’t burn out their stars and the other on the development of their youngsters.

Ultimately, it is the NBL coaching fraternity who will determine if there is ever a serious push to return NBL games to the 48-minute format, but thus far there has been no indication that the majority of coaches support lengthening matches.

Certainly, the pro 48-minute lobby seized upon a recent tweet by Sydney Kings head coach Shane Heal backing the longer game.

“I think the nbl should still have 4x12 min qtrs,” Heal tweeted. “Better value for fans and more opportunities for players.”

Whilst Heal’s position on the game format is clear, that of his fellow seven NBL coaches is less so and there would need to be a critical mass of support developing for any rule change to occur. 

The fact that the 48 versus 40 question has not appeared even once on the agenda at the quarterly NBL CEO’s meetings in recent times is a fair indication that the matter is not considered to be a burning issue facing the league by any of the clubs. 

Or even an issue at all perhaps.

The NBA is the only major international league that still plays 48-minute games and, whilst some would say we should model our own competition on the world’s best, there simply is no immediate prospect of the NBL increasing the playing time.

I used to love the old one-and-one rule in basketball and lamented when it disappeared from the game.  Yet ultimately I had to accept that it was gone from the game for good. Unless there is a groundswell of support from the NBL coaching ranks or FIBA changes the international rules of the game as part of their on-going efforts to align with the NBA, the 48-minute game will also remain a thing of the past.