I'm targeting dating Isla Fisher. Neither will happen though.

Would it be better for prime time NBL on Friday/Saturday on ABC or SBS or these weird afternoon time slots on 7/9/10 secondary channels?

If true, finally a common sense decision!

I would imagine GO receives higher ratings than ABC/SBS most of the time

Do specific TV stations really matter that much these days? So many different channels where people find their content across every format, it feels like advertising is more important than a channel number.

Saturday night Games are the best for TV. Could have 730pm game and then a game in Perth from 1030pm AEDT.

10:30pm is probably a little late for the Grandpas.
How long do we need to allow for a telecast, from tip off? is 2.5 hours enough? Or do we need to allow 3 hours between games to allow for pre-game, and O/T?

Do people still watch the 6 o'clock news? I think 6:30pm is a good tip-off time. That's only 9:30 in the east. SO you could have 6:30 & 9:30 games televised.

I didn't mind the occasional LATE afternoon game, 4:30 or 5:00pm tipoff. You can still have a fullish day, and get to town for the game.
But the 12pm and 2:20pm games were a nightmare, and having 8 of them messed up my season from an attendance perspective.

Definitely a need to target those game times. Surely 9s coverage of Tennis for a couple of months mid season makes it more difficult, but not even having games at that time that you can watch on fox sports is crazy.

If this happens are they going to call it another landmark deal?

If true, finally a common sense decision!

Wouldn't mind like how it was in the 90's, if your city is playing play that game in the evening. Perth play Sydney, show it on delay at 7?

Remember when perth played say Friday or Saturday it was live and if they played away it was on at 8.30pm on delay.

Only problem know is all the social media that you find out the scores.

TV Networks shouldnt be showing any sports on delay these days.

What happened to the Sunday Morning Highlights show that was mooted for Nine's main channel?

Cats for life home games were also delayed by an hour. Tipoff 7:30pm TV coverage started at 8:30pm on Friday and Saturdays. Those were the days!

Meanwhile in other breaking news I'm targeting tonight's Powerball jackpot.

If true, finally a common sense decision!

"You say that like night games wouldn't have been a thing this season if TV had wanted."

Not at all. I say that as someone who loves Friday and Saturday night games, TV or no TV!

The NBL needs to find a timeslot where more people will choose to watch basketball. Unfortunately, the primetime timeslots with the most competition from other shows/sports are unlikely to be it.

"The NBL needs to find a timeslot where more people will choose to watch basketball. Unfortunately, the primetime timeslots with the most competition from other shows/sports are unlikely to be it."

Its a conundrum for sure. Show it at a time when there's no competition but nobody actually watches tv or show it when lots of people are watching but there's heaps of competition?

One thing, regardless of FTA deal they do need to do though is not get rid of Friday/Saturday night games almost entirely as they have often this season. Sure, schedule a few games specifically for TV, but there's been Saturday nights when even I've been up for watching a game and there hasn't been any. Considering that is also a preferred time for people to attend games, surely scheduling a mix where a decent portion are in that time slot makes sense.

"Show it at a time when there's no competition but nobody actually watches tv or show it when lots of people are watching but there's heaps of competition?"

Indeed. There is always competition at any half-decent slot, but there needs to be a balance. When the NBL was on Ten on Sunday arvo for a few seasons in a row it actually made some inroads and started to grow the audience with a consistent time/channel, unfortunately since then it's been on Gem, SBS and now GO in quick succession which doesn't help.

With the exception of that short period on Ten on Sundays, the FTA ratings have been stubbornly stuck on an average of around the 30K mark since the NBL got back onto FTA 8-9 years ago.

It does seem Sunday arvo is the best time slot. If they could focus on that as their key FTA game while trying to work in Saturday nights it would be encouraging.

How much was it the Sunday arvo, and how much of it was being on a primary channel? Outside of that brief period they've been stuck on secondary channels, which nobody seems to watch.

Good question. The AFL seems to focus more on Sunday afternoons for more FTA televised games, so I imagine that suggests its a higher viewing timeslot that Saturday arvos (though I don't have any numbers to back that up).

Always skeptical about TV ratings, it's based on a very small sample with specific ratings boxes.

When you have small samples, it makes it far harder to analyse minorities/small groups, ie those watching the NBL.

If you had a sample of 10 randoms in Adelaide and asked them if they watched the NBL, you might get 0, even though you can bet your bottom dollar at least 1 person in the state watches it. It's extremely tough to make adjustments for this.

Then there's also the geographical aspect - ie, the viewership in Cairns, Wollongong specifically might be reasonably high, but if there's few people on the sample in Cairns, Wollongong, then it's harder to make the argument in those markets to gain sponsors.

Then there's the reach through people watching in pubs etc.

Comparatively, internet provides a far greater breakdown. I would be interested in how NBL TV or streaming rates