The NBA Should Cut the Season to 72 Games – it will only lose 3.3% Total Revenue

The NBA has a quality problem.

Too many regular season games now feel:

• repetitive
• less meaningful
• overly dependent on 3-point shooting
• lower intensity than past eras

And one of the biggest reasons is simple:

👉 There are too many games.

Even Steve Kerr — whose career greatly benefited from the 3-point shot — has publicly questioned the direction of the modern NBA game.

But the NBA does not need radical changes to improve the product.

It simply needs to reduce the regular season from 82 games to 72.

At first glance, people assume this would cost the league enormous amounts of money. But when you look at where NBA revenue actually comes from, the financial hit is surprisingly small.

The NBA’s revenue is roughly:

• 55% television/media rights
• 30% tickets and arena revenue
• 15% sponsorships/merchandise

Television money — the league’s biggest source of revenue — would likely remain almost entirely intact because the playoffs, stars, and national TV matchups would still exist.

The real loss would mostly come from five fewer home games per team.

NBA teams average roughly 44 total home games per season including the playoffs. Reducing the schedule from 82 to 72 games would reduce that number to about 39 home games, roughly an 11% reduction in home dates.

But because arena revenue is only about 30% of league revenue, the overall financial loss would only be approximately:

👉 11% × 30% = about 3.3% of total NBA revenue.

That’s far smaller than most fans realize.

And players would likely accept a modest pay reduction in exchange for:

• less wear and tear
• fewer back-to-backs
• healthier careers
• better playoff basketball
• and fewer meaningless regular season games

It would also help solve one of the NBA’s biggest current problems:

👉 load management.

Fans now spend hundreds — sometimes thousands — of dollars on tickets, parking, food, and travel, only to find out that star players are “resting” for random regular season games.

That hurts:

• fans
• TV ratings
• arena atmosphere
• and ultimately the league’s product

A 72-game season would make every game more valuable and reduce the need for stars to sit out as often.

Fans would feel much more confident that when they buy tickets, the players they came to see will actually play.

The result would likely be:

• higher intensity games
• fewer meaningless nights in January and February
• less load management
• healthier stars
• and a better overall product for fans and television audiences alike

The NBA doesn’t need less basketball.

It just needs fewer meaningless games.

👉 Would you rather have 82 lower-quality games or 72 higher-quality games?