New NBA Schedule Features Fewer Late Start Times For Los Angeles Lakers, Golden State Warriors

The 2019-2020 NBA Schedule was released at 3 p.m. Monday. This schedule features a fewer late national doubleheader windows, and the second game begins at 10:30 p.m. eastern, than ever before, as noted by a league source.

This is probably an effort from the NBA to improve national ratings from the previous season. Well, we all know that officials won’t admit it publicly. Last season’s ratings were down 5% from the previous season on games across ESPN, TNT and NBATV. This may be an attempt to present national TV games to the largest possible audience, the source confirms.

“Nationally televised games for the upcoming season that start at the late 10:30 slot have decreased from 56 games last year to 33 for 2019-2020,” Forbes’ Shlomo Sprung reports. “This means more games featuring LeBron James, Anthony Davis and the new-look Los Angeles Lakers, Kawhi Leonard, Paul George and the L.A. Clippers and Stephen Curry, D’Angelo Russell and the Golden State Warriors will start at 10 or 9:30 in order to attract more eyeballs. To be specific, the Warriors will play just 11 times on national TV at 10:30, down from 18 last season and the Lakers will play 10 at that time slot, down from 19 in 2018-2019.

“Many factors went into the new early start times that are going to be a little less convenient to West Coast fans, but with 51% of the U.S.’ television households in the Eastern time zone, it made more sense for the NBA to go in this direction. Call it an East Coast Bias if you’d like, but the NBA is experimenting to see if this change can offset the ratings dip from a season ago.”

ESPN will be the most impacted network. The doubleheader start times at 8 and 10:30 on Wednesday are officially out for the upcoming season. Of the 21 occasions SPN will show two games on Wednesdays, 15 will start at 7:30 and 10 eastern. Six will start at 7 and 9:30, the NBA says. It doesn’t affect TNT’s flagship Thursday night telecasts, the network’s 12 Tuesday doubleheaders during the season will have two 10:30 late tips, nine that will start at 7:30 and 10, and one at the early 7 and 9:30.