I Love This Game

Over the past year, Japan and I have developed a love-hate relationship when it comes to holidays. She makes me work on Christmas, but instead gives me the vernal equinox off during March. She revokes my Spring Break, but gives Golden Week (a string of national holidays such as Greenery Day, Showa Day, and Children's Day in May). But I fear that this time she has gone too far, crossed an unforgivable line. What holiday has she dared steal, you ask? The NBA Finals, friend, the NBA Finals.

While not as popular as baseball or soccer, the NBA does have a strong following in Japan. In fact, more Denver Nuggets apparel is sold in Japan than in the entire United States thanks to the immense popularity of Allen Iverson. Giving AI a run for his money in terms of popularity, though, is none other than Kobe Bryant. As such, one would assume that simply on Kobe's advertising power alone that the Finals would easily accessible here. One, it turns out, would be wrong.

The NBA Finals games are being broadcast twice: once at 10 am on the day of the game, and then again at 1 am the following morning. SERIOUSLY? I may not be a marketing exec, but what conceivable reason could there be for these two time slots? What demographic could they possibly be targeting? If they pulled this kind of stunt in America the only people watching the Finals would be bored housewives, infants, household pets, and pre-teen boys who drink can after can of Red Bull to stay up and watch Carson Daily. If you were in charge of marketing and you had a superstar like Kobe Bryant making his dramatic return to the greatest stage in the basketball world, wouldn't you try and get that face in front of as many fans as possible? 10 am and 1 am, people!? I'm sorry, it's just that I still find this whole thing very hard to stomach.

I am coping, however. I've instituted a strict regimen of beginning to download the games as soon as I get home from work and then warning everyone on my basketball team that if they so much as utter a word of the score before I have a chance to watch it myself they will find themselves on the receiving end of an incredibly strong and horribly aimed low bounce pass, the kind that you don't catch with your hands. After a quick demonstration, they seemed to figure it out and are keeping quiet.

One last, albeit slightly unrelated, note. To those who say that Tim Duncan and the Spurs and boring and no fun to watch, or just those of you wondering what Japanese basketball ads might look like, I give you the following: