Cuban: NBA should permanently move start of season to Christmas Day

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is the latest NBA figure to promote the idea of permanently moving the start of the season to Christmas Day.

"I've been saying that for 15 years," Cuban said on the "Pardon My Take" podcast. "And the reason I've been getting shot down is, there's this thing called HUT (households using televisions). And during the summer, that drops. ... In the past, that was a big deal. So you wanted to end (the NBA season) by June so you could maximize the people watching TV.

"But ... TV's changed."

With the coronavirus pandemic set to either push back the playoffs as far as late summer or cancel the remainder of the 2019-20 season outright, it's expected the start of the 2020-21 campaign will begin in December at the earliest.

Cuban says it may be time to keep it that way rather than having the NBA's early-season games continue to compete with the NFL.

"We're going to have a lot more options and a lot more flexibility to start later and end later," he said. "And rather than taking on football with, you know, our first early games, let's let them get close to playoffs and just go wholeheartedly starting Christmas Day."

Others in the NBA, such as Atlanta Hawks CEO Steve Koonin and Houston Rockets guard Eric Gordon, have also voiced support for tipping off during the holiday season.