Scheduling Conflict

As some of your may have heard yesterday, the NBA and the WWE are at odds. It appears as though both have Denver's Pepsi Center reserved for next Monday and neither seems willing to budge. Apparently, in the ultimate of stupid, the Denver Nuggets and the Pepsi Center failed to take into account that there might actually be a basketball game that needed to be played around this time in their city.

The WWE originally reserved the location last August and then signed a confirmation contract the day after the NBA season ended in April. They have already sold over 10,000 tickets to the event, which, as part of Monday Night Raw has its one television obligations which need to be fulfilled. Vincent Kennedy McMahon has been his typical mercurial self and ripped the Nuggets ownership for not having faith in their team and saying that as of right now he has no intentions of changing the plans for Raw next week. The NBA has been equally pig-headed stating that the game will not be moved and its up to the Nuggets to make a deal with the WWE to get them to move their event.

Which makes me wonder who is truly the fool here. Is it the Nuggets/Pepsi Center for signing a contract with the WWE in April when they knew that their team was the number 2 seed in the playoffs which meant there was a good chance of a game coming to their stadium in May? Is it the NBA for simply saying, "We're not going to change our game obviously, so its the Nuggets problem on how to appease Vince and the WWE"? The third option would be the WWE but it is difficult to lay any blame with them as its certainly not their job to follow-up with the NBA to make sure its OK to have their event that they have been planning since last August.

More than likely what will happen here is that the WWE will be forced to take their show elsewhere. Perhaps one of the local colleges will be able to house the show for that night in their basketball arena or hockey rink, but those venues will certainly not be the same draw or have the same capacity as the Pepsi Center. This is just a prime example of poor planning on all sides and the inability to realize that a conflict could arise here. It will be fun to see how this plays out and how much the Nuggets and the Pepsi Center end up having to pay Vince for his inconvenience. Can't wait for next week's Raw.