Christmas Day Games

St. Basil the Great of Ceasarea (now modern day Turkey) is considered by both the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodoxy as a Doctor of the Church.  He once said, “The bread which you do not eat is the bread of the hungry.  The garment hanging in your wardrobe is the garment of him who is naked.  The shoes that you do not wear are the shoes of the one who is barefoot.  The money that you keep locked away is the money of the poor, and the acts of charity that you do not perform are so many injustices that you commit.”

One way or another, all of us had been guilty of these.  Christmas is a time of giving and sharing and I hope we did things appropriate for the season.  Humility and compassion should have been given importance considering the trials and difficulties that a good number of our brethren had encountered.  Our acts of kindness will give them hope that above all the misfortune, we care for them.  Here’s hoping that we all had a blessed Christmas.

***

For the past six years, the NBA presented fans with 5 games scheduled on Christmas Day.  In our part of the world, it is actually a day after Christmas.  These games featured the biggest names in basketball and considering the ten teams involved, mentioning them all would be too numerous.

Yesterday, we saw the Bulls defeating the Nets, Oklahoma giving New York a severe thunder storm, Miami boiling the Lakers and Houston rocketing over San Antonio.  Still having a close game as I write this are the Clippers and the Warriors.

Christmas Day games of last year had 33 million viewers worldwide with the MIA-OKC game generating 9.6 million views, surpassing all but one playoff games prior to the 2012-2013 NBA Finals (Game 7 of  the MIA-IND Eastern Conference Finals).

The league’s marketing department says holiday games dates back almost 70 years ago.  The 1947 debut offered 3 games and was received so well by the public that the following year had four games and six in 1949.  After that, games were minimized but had maintained significance with marquee match-ups, based on, as Senior VP for Marketing and Communications Michael Bass says, “storyline, rivalries, player matchups, history and tradition of the teams and the players.”

Noticed the sleeved playing jerseys?  These are special editions with oversized logos on the chest area.  There are no numbers on the front but are moved to the left sleeve.  This innovation on the unis were dreamed by the NBA and the people at Adidas and were first introduced as an alternate uniform during last October’s pre-season games to a few willing teams and gained some momentum to some other teams.

All the ten teams playing yesterday had on these uniforms and the league’s reigning best player on the league’s best team was vocal about it.  LeBron James says it hampers the shooting ability of his shooters but since Kobe was not around, the inconvenience didn’t matter.  The sleeves particularly tended to explode on his bulging biceps.  Miami and the Lakers are two of the few teams who are not warm to the new uniforms.

The league sees this differently.  Holiday games are great for the fans that even the most passive fan tend to pay attention to what athletes are wearing.  My cousin, Dr. Rex Mendoza, not our average hoop addict, inquired about the fashion change.  To the NBA, the opportunity to siphon money from the casual fan is too tempting to ignore.  It’s all about marketing.  Remember the Christmas edition player exclusive shoes last week?

Personally, these things are ugly and I don’t really care if you guys don’t agree.  The wise guys in the business probably did this purely for its commercial value with total disregard to players’ comfort and convenience.

Not everyone favors holiday games as most prefer to stay at home with their families.  The NBA has even fined former coach and now TV analyst Stan Van Gundy for his opposition to the games.  He said, “For the players and coaches, even though I don’t like it, at least we benefit from financially from the TV contracts.  But for the ushers, security people, ticket takers, concession workers, etc., they are paid low wages but have to work on Christmas because the NBA cares about little other than how much money they can make.”

Bottomline, Christmas Day games is all about marketing, how to sell merchandise.  Yes, at some point in our lives, we did have shirts with logos of professional sports teams.  I suppose you’ll agree with me on this.

[email protected].