NBA Season 2019-2020 and 2020-2021

When does a regular NBA season start?

The NBA is the most popular basketball league in the world. It is estimated over 278 million fans worldwide follow NBA on various social media platforms in over 150 countries. The league is awash with most of the biggest names in the history of the game and a tremendous amount of money, fame and hype. Fans across the world cannot have enough of the NBA action, even before the season ends they are already asking about the dates for the next season. And even during preseasons and breaks, fans keep gobbling up on the rumors and hype associated with the game.

One of the most googled questions between August and October 2019 in the United States was “When does the 2019 – 2020 NBA season start?” indeed some are even wondering when the 2020 – 2021 NBA season begin. Such is the hype and thirst of the fans for the NBA, almost an insatiable hunger for more and more NBA action. In this article, we will cover on when a regular NBA season starts. If you are wondering when the 2020 – 2021 season might start, we got you covered.

How popular is the NBA

While the popularity of NBA in the United States is indisputable, the rest of the world is another thing. Unfortunately, the NBA declined from being one of the most watched leagues in the world back in 90s to being a mere watched league in continents of America. This popularity of the 90’s NBA was in a large part a result of the light shone on it by Hollywood movies that gain worldwide acclaim. The music industry also played a vital role in making the game popular outside the US as music videos featured basketball scenes and lyrics. Hip-hop music in particular, which was also gaining flying in popularity at the time, carried the NBA with it.

However, the NBA is slowly recouping its lost fame of the 90’s by actively promoting the league in different countries outside the US, taking advantage of social media and the re-emergence of old rivalries between clubs has been a timely addition. NBA is on the road to regain its lost fame outside North America gaining more fans in Europe, Asia and Africa. Very soon, more non-Americans will be asking the question: When does the NBA season start?

The current NBA season

This is the 74th NBA season, it began an October 22nd 2019 and it is expected to end at April 15th 2020. The NBA all-star game was played on February 16th 2020 in Chicago. Playoffs are expected to start on April 18, 2020 and to end with the finals on June 2020. Normally there aren’t fixed dates for the starting of the NBA season. However, we can generally estimate when a season could begin and end based on previous seasons. The exact dates for the start of the season aren’t generally known to the public way ahead of the season.

Update*: Due to the COVID-19 Coronavirus epidemic, a practice of social distancing and cancellation of public events lead to this season being postponed. Check out the latest updates on this issue.

Other previous seasons

The 73rd season of the NBA began on October 16, 2018 and ended on April 10, 2019. The NBA all-star game was played February 17, 2019 in Charlotte, North Carolina. The playoffs began on April 13, 2019 and ended on June 13th with the Toronto Raptors winning the record 2019 NBA finals for the first time ever after defeating Golden State Warriors. The season before that, the 72nd season, was a bit peculiar as it began somewhat sooner than other previous seasons.

The season began on October 17th, 2017, just to compare, the previous season started on October 25th, 2016. This was done to reduce the number of “back to back” games that teams were scheduled to play. This particular season ended on April 11, 2018 with the playoffs beginning on 14th April and ending on June 8.

The 2020 regular NBA season

Prior to the 2017 – 2018 season, most regular seasons would start at around the last week of October. This is no different for the 2020 – 2021 season. However, other external factors can affect this date for instance, the Corona outbreak. The Covid-19 has already wreaked havoc in other major leagues in the world. China has been forced to suspend all their leagues, with most Asian countries expected to do the same.

In Europe, Italy which is the European country most hit by the virus is at the moment banning fans into the stadium in order to contain the spread of the virus. It is feared that other European countries might adopt the same path in an effort to contain the virus.

In the United States, measures are being taken to screen travellers and educate the public. However, the worst case scenario would see the league suspended for a while and that could impact the beginning of the next season. There are also talks, albeit, still at the early stages discussing possibility of starting a regular NBA season on Christmas day.

Conclusion

In general, the start of the regular 2020-2021 season hinges on many things and other uncontrollable factors may affect the norm date. It is for this reason that such information aren’t really known ahead of time. The NBA will have to take plenty of factors into considerations for the start of the 2020 – 2021 season. The best we can speculate is that, if everything goes right, we can expect the regular season to begin somewhere between mid and late October, as it has always been.

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Happy Dunnett
Happy Dunnetthttps://weeklyreviewer.com/author/developer1/
Happy Dunnett carries a Bachelors in Computer Science and a passion for writing in all areas of and around the tech industry. He is an active contributor and co-author to sites including Weeklyreviewer.com

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