For the first time in seven years, a major North American professional sports league has lost regular season games due to a labor dispute.
NBA Commissioner David Stern announced Monday that the NBA has chosen to cancel the first two weeks of the 2011-12 regular season after the league’s owners were unable to reach a deal with the National Basketball Players Association.
This is the first time since the 1998-99 NBA lockout that the league has lost games due to labor strife, and the first time since the 2004-05 NHL lockout that any of the major North American pro sports leagues has canceled regular season games for that reason.
After talks stalled last week, Stern said that he would cancel the first two weeks of the season on Monday in the absence of a new collective bargaining agreement. The NBA and NBPA met on both Sunday and Monday in a last minute attempt to strike a deal, but were unsuccessful.
NBA owners began the 2011-12 lockout on July 1. From 1947 to 1995, the NBA did not have a single work stoppage, despite threatened player strikes in 1964, 1967 and 1983. In the past sixteen years, the league has had four work stoppages, all lockouts started by the owners.
This is the second lockout to wipe out portions of the season, and the third of the four to last through at least September.
The season was to begin on November 1 with the Mavericks hosting the Bulls and the Thunder facing the Lakers on TNT. The next night, ESPN would have aired Heat/Knicks and Lakers/Warriors.
All told, TNT and ESPN will lose seven nights of NBA programming, equaling thirteen nationally televised games, during the first two weeks of the season.
TBS, sister network of TNT, broke into Monday’s Cardinals/Brewers NLCS Game 2 to announce the cancellation.
Assuming the NBA does not reformat the remainder of the 2011-12 schedule, the NBA season is currently set to begin on November 15. The first nationally televised games would air on November 16, with ESPN carrying Celtics/Heat and Knicks/Nuggets. The next night, TNT would air Celtics/Magic and Knicks/Lakers.
List of Canceled NBA Regular Season Games on National TV
Includes ratings for comparable game windows last year.
|
Date
|
Time
|
Cancelled Game
|
Net
|
Last Year
|
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Rating
|
Viewers (000)
|
||||
| Tue., 11/1/11? | 8:00 PM | CHI at?DAL | TNT |
4.6
|
7,348
|
| 10:30 PM | OKC at?LAL | TNT |
2.8
|
4,279
|
|
| Wed., 11/2/11? | 8:00 PM | MIA at NY | ESPN |
1.2
|
1,697
|
| 10:30 PM | LAL at GS | ESPN |
1.2
|
1,854
|
|
| Thu., 11/3/11? | 8:00 PM | ORL at MIA | TNT |
1.1
|
1,524
|
| 10:30 PM | DEN at POR | TNT |
1.0
|
1,423
|
|
| Fri., 11/4/11? | 8:00 PM | BOS at ATL | ESPN |
2.3
|
3,774
|
| 10:30 PM | POR at LAC | ESPN |
2.0
|
3,168
|
|
| Wed., 11/9/11? | 8:00 PM | HOU at PHI | ESPN |
1.7
|
2,451
|
| 10:30 PM | SA at LAL | ESPN |
1.6
|
2,329
|
|
| Thu., 11/10/11? | 8:00 PM | OKC at CHI | TNT |
1.3
|
2,004
|
| 10:30 PM | SA at POR | TNT |
1.2
|
1,734
|
|
| Fri., 11/11/11 | 10:30 PM | DEN at LAL | ESPN |
1.2
|
1,914
|
(Monday’s news from InsideHoops.com)
