What a joke. The ONLY reason this is being considered is to add 4 more minutes of commercials/income, and will result in a more boring game.
Society is changing. In the era of instant information and constant multi-tasking with a portable mini-computer they call a phone, people don't have the time to leisurely take in sports. Like other aspects in their life they need it quick and to the point. Some believe you don't even start getting into basketball until after January 1st and it's only the last 5 minutes of a basketball game that is worth watching. If you want proof, look at baseball. American pastime is getting passed by. Three plus hours for a game . . . young generation is just not buying into it. Who has time anymore to take in a ballgame, much less 161 games. Baseball is all about statistics, tradition, spending a day at the ball park and not changing rules so as to compare players of the past to current players. They are a dinosaur sport so stuck in their ways and stats that they aren't recognizing the demands of the current sport fans. There are other things to do besides spend an entire day "taking in a game" Basketball on the other hand isn't afraid to adapt to what the public wants. They add a three point line and change the way defense is played to add excitement to the game. Now it's time to adjust to the busy, got-to-have-my-sports-fast-and- quick-and-move-on type of society. Go to a game, watch the stars do what they do, get a result and on to reading and participating about what is going on in the local community, around the country and around the world. Let Paul Allen get on that Learjet earlier so that he can maybe squeeze in another event or two before the night is done. Besides, who cares about 4 minutes of bench players. against bench players . . it's the last five minutes of a basketball game that matters anyways.
44 minutes, 48...They think it has to be divisible by 4. But if you have 5 or 9 quarters, it could be 45. With 6 or 7 quarters, it could be 42. Of course, they wouldn't be called quarters. Okay, I got it. Let the fans decide. Reduce it by 1 each season to see what it's like. 47 the first season, 46 the next, etc. The quarters would become 11 3/4, 11 1/2, etc. Simple. Keep doing it till the fans say enough is enough. This allows the rosters to reduce by 1 player every 48/15 years = 3.2 years. The owners would save a salary every 3 years to make up for the lost hot dog sales. Cops wouldn't have to stay up so late, although they'd be paid less, too. Taxes would be cut. Why didn't the league think of this before? Stern.
I'm guessing it's the same reason "feature films" went from two hours to 90 minutes. Same reason songs on America's Top 40 had to be three minutes or less to get radio time. Fits better in the alloted time slot and they'll figure out how to translate that into more money.
Although nobody will agree with me, I've mentioned before that if you want to keep a game flowing and not get bottled up in the end, get rid of the intentional foul. Watching Shaq shoot freethrows for an entire 4th qtr in a playoff game was brutal. If the intentional foul is like a goal tend, 2pts automatically, the game will speed up and they'll actually play the game and have to defend to win
Very good point Bert but something tells me if they shave 4 minutes of playing time, they add 4 minutes of advertisement anyway
