Commissioner of the NBA Adam Silver explained that bad language is a real concern as the NBA resumes its coronavirus-interrupted season at Disney.
He said, “I think often players, they understand when they’re on the floor, they’re saying certain things to each other because it’s so loud in the arena, they know a lot of it is not being picked up. They may have to adapt their language a little bit knowing what they say will likely be picked up by microphones and in all seriousness, we may need to put a little bit of a delay.”
The issue lies with corporate sponsors. Companies advertising during NBA games likely wouldn’t be thrilled with their brands being associated with the language players often use on the floor.
The NBA could use pumped-in crowd noise to drown some of that out. After all, the noise of arenas is what enables players to get away with using bad language in the first place. But the NBA isn’t used to hosting games without fans, so it will have to experiment a bit in order to see what works.
