Adam Silver proposes NBA shorten games to 10-minute quarters

Adam Silver proposes NBA shorten games to 10-minute quarters

NBA commissioner Adam Silver isn’t afraid to come up with new ideas. Silver appeared on The Dan Patrick Wednesday, and in his latest potential pitch he admitted that he was “probably in the minority”: He floated the idea of shrinking quarters from 12 to 10 minutes.

“As we get more involved in global basketball, the NBA is the only league that plays 48 minutes. And I am a fan of four 10-minute quarters,” Silver said Wednesday. “I’m not sure that many others are. Putting aside what it means for records and things like that, yeah, I think that a two-hour format for a game is more consistent with modern television habits.

“I think of a television program being two hours, Olympic basketball being two hours. And college basketball, of course, is 40 minutes.”

Adam Silver suggests NBA could shorten games to 10-minute quarters 👀

(Via @dpshow / h/t @BASKETBALLonX )

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— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) January 29, 2025

The average of a current NBA game sits around 2:13, which isn’t a drastic difference compared to the two-hour talking point Silver mentioned. But one thing he did talk about was the “modern television habits.” I’m not sure what he means by that, but is he hinting at the modern-day attention span of individuals–which isn’t large–and “average watch time,” from channel-to-channel.

I know a great way to help fix that issue: Start the games on time. NBA games don’t typically start until 10-to-15 minutes after their listed time 95 percent of the time anyway; most individuals sit down for a 7:30 p.m. game and it doesn’t start until 7:45–what do you think people are going to do? They’re either on their phone, onto a completely different channel or doing a completely new activity.

Most sickos wait until the game starts, but it’s hard to attract the average fan to sit down and watch a game when nobody has any idea when it starts. In baseball, you know the exact millisecond for when first pitch is; for football, kickoffs may be a minute off unless there’s a programming alert (previous game/event lasts long).

Silver’s goal to lower the quarters would help save wear and tear on players’ bodies, which would be a plus (potentially). It is the only league that has four 12-minute quarters, but that’s also unique to the NBA alone. If you lean into the game being more international, go full fledge with the rules and physicality the sport allows.

If not, let’s not mess with the game we love, which will affect the record books. It’s not worth unless other changes are made.

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