The NBA’s planned December 22 start to next season has the green light from its players. Also: ESPN has begun another wave of massive layoffs; Fox Sports’ Big Noon Saturday team has been sidelined for this week; the NFL Playoffs could expand even further this year.
Reports: NBA players approve December 22 start to coming season
National Basketball Players Association player representatives voted Thursday night to approve the league’s plan for a 72-game regular season that begins December 22, according to The Athletic and ESPN. As recently as last week, NBPA executive director Michele Roberts said the players were overwhelmingly against starting next season so soon after the previous one ended. The tone shifted from opposition to resignation as the league laid out its projections of massive financial losses — on top of the billions it already expects to lose with no fans in the stands — if the season began after Christmas. [The Athletic 11.5; ESPN 11.5]
Pitaro: ESPN to lay off 300
ESPN began another wave of layoffs on Thursday, with company president Jimmy Pitaro telling staff in an internal memo that 300 jobs would be cut and 200 open positions left unfilled. According to The Athletic, the cuts will disproportionately affect on-site production staff, a group uniquely vulnerable in an era of remotely produced games. The layoffs will also affect writers and on-air talent, with college football writer Ivan Maisel among those announcing that they have been let go. [The Athletic 11.5]
Fox “Big Noon Saturday” studio team sidelined this weekend
The Fox Sports Big Noon Saturday studio team of Rob Stone, Urban Meyer, Reggie Bush, Brady Quinn and Matt Leinart will be absent from the show this week due to COVID-19 precautions, the New York Post reported Wednesday. The quintet will be replaced by Charissa Thompson, Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long and Emmanuel Acho, who will work a condensed one-hour pregame show.
The pregame show was originally set to originate from the campus of USC for the Trojans’ Pac-12 opener against Arizona State. It seems unlikely that would still be the case. [NYP 11.4]
ESPN: NFL could expand playoffs to 16 teams if games lost
The NFL competition committee plans to recommend that the league expand its postseason field from 14 to 16 teams should any games be lost due to COVID-19, ESPN reported Monday. The current 14-team field already represents an expansion over the previous 12-team field that had been in place from 1990 through last season.
Major League Baseball and the NHL both expanded their playoff fields this year in order to account for their truncated seasons. The NBA kept its 16-team field intact, except for the addition of a play-in round between the #8 and #9 seeds that did not technically count as a playoff game. [ESPN.com 11.2]
