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Honest question - if a female identifies as a man, does that change the perception?

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Doesn’t he bathe in manischewitz?

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I watch my teams games live when I can. Most other games I’ll watch the YouTube version.

Takes out the fun of watching live

Where is his Hanukkah Spirit!?

I still watch football OTA. I don’t miss not watching it on Thursdays since I don’t have a prime account and never missed it on mondays cause I don’t have cable. I’ve watched football for over forty years. IMO it is not a premium product and if the NFL markets it as such then whatever. I’m usually reading books during the games anyway. If the nfl goes away I’ll be fine.

OK...I mean I'm not going to bother arguing against a generic argument of something that happens "every game." I don't agree that it does and if your best example is a playoff series from 20+ years ago, it's kind of a ridiculous starting point as the league has changed a lot since then.

I do think the NBA has taken steps to reduce the number of fouls and free-throws. They just implemented new rules to target offensive players who were jumping into defenders to initiate contact. And you can see the number of FTs per game is going down in recent seasons, especially when compared to the 2000s.

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Don’t fret, you still have the record for the playoffs!

Deep rewind

Well damnit. So it was Joey Porter that said Can't wait!

See any game with a star then. You see it every game when it involves a star v nonstar.

Lakers-Kings as in the playoff series that happend 20+ years ago?

Also wrong, that was Dennis Green.

Are your kids teenagers? I'm a high school teacher, and I think about smacking them all the time. I wouldn't though. Teens are dicks though. I don't have kids, so it's probably different with your own.

Well ratings have been dropping. The ones who care about these things are increasingly not tuning in. I know a number of people who stopped watching and became college basketball fans because the NBA feels fixed in the stars' favor. It's common knowledge the league fixes games to keep stars in the post season see Lakers Kings. If your team doesn't have stars, the deck is stacked against you due to the obvious bias in officiating. Fans aren't stupid. They aren't tuning in if the outcome is already decided.

The commissioner clearly doesn't have the pulse figured out since it's happening under his watch.

Strange this is a sticking point, considering DirecTV used to give it away as part of their packages all the time.

I don't really think you're right about that. All the stuff you've listed out is what people who are already fans of the NBA care about. Whether or not a star plays is what a casual or non-fan is going to care about. That's why many commercials for big games are Curry vs Giannis, not Warriors vs Bucks or fair and efficient officiating.

I mean the commissioner of the NBA surely has a better pulse of what his TV partners are looking for than we do as anonymous speculators. And he is focusing on this.

Agree

NBA has much more pressing issues when it comes to their tv ratings. They should be doing a number of other things way before trying this.

Fix the referees and stop giving stars special treatment on calls. Make more regular season games matter. Get more games back on network television. Any of these things would greatly improve ratings over a gassed star struggling up and down the court.

Forcing teams to burn out their players before the playoffs isn't going to help anything.

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It's clearly not better for the game if the commissioner of the league is fining teams for employing this practice. He's doing that because stars sitting out games hurt their TV deal negotiations and their ability to convince fans to spend hard-earned money to attend games - which is the bulk of their revenue. And that revenue is what pays star players tens of millions of dollars.

To me, no one with a conscience would be for further screwing fans, intentional or not, for the benefit of multimillionaires and billionaires. I like the NBA and other sports and root for my favorite teams like the next, but I also understand its ultimately just entertainment that doesn't exist without fan support.