What do Billy Joel, Janet Jackson, Chris Stapleton and the WWE have in common? They’ve all been affected by playoff scheduling in the NBA and NHL.
Once April hits, the two leagues, their teams and the network partners have to figure out and plan for two months of playoffs leading up to the NBA and the Stanley Cup finals.
“It’s a big jigsaw puzzle,” NBA senior vice president of broadcast scheduling Thomas Carelli told ESPN.
The final pieces of that puzzle involve working around two leagues’ schedules, television and yes, sometimes moving concert dates.
Working around each other is nothing new for the NBA and NHL, as teams do it every season. The leagues share 10 arenas — Los Angeles (Kings/Clippers/Lakers); Dallas (Stars/Mavericks); Denver (Avalanche/Nuggets); Detroit (Red Wings/Pistons); Washington D.C. (Capitals/Wizards); Toronto (Maple Leafs/Raptors); Chicago (Blackhawks/Bulls); Philadelphia (Flyers/Sixers); Boston (Bruins/Celtics); and New York (Rangers/Knicks).
This postseason, four of those arenas — Crypto.com Arena (Los Angeles), Ball Arena (Denver), TD Garden (Boston) and Madison Square Garden (New York) — shared first-round duties, though thanks to losses by the Kings, Avalanche, Bruins and Rangers, they’re strictly NBA-only now.
Still, it takes teamwork to make sure the leagues can pull off their playoffs as seamlessly as possible. NHL senior EVP, chief content officer Steve Mayer told ESPN that it helps when the league shares network partners like the NBA and NHL do with ESPN and Turner Sports.
“So you’ve got incredible cooperation on the network side because they clearly understand the dilemma,” Mayer said. “They can schedule accordingly based on the fact that they’re controlling the schedule for both leagues.
“The two leagues work really well together in terms of understanding dates and openings. There’s occasionally problems, but for the most part, there’s quite a significant amount of flexibility.”
Sometimes, that flexibility has to come from musical acts. This season, Joel had a concert at Madison Square Garden rescheduled for three days later because it conflicted with Game 3 of the Rangers’ series against the New Jersey Devils, and Janet Jackson had a show moved back a day because of Game 6 between the Boston Celtics and Atlanta Hawks at State Farm Arena.
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