The NBA Cup, which took shape as an “outside the box” idea for league growth, has evolved into a success with players and supporters.
The third edition of the NBA’s mid-season tournament continued with semi-final games in Las Vegas yesterday after press time as the San Antonio Spurs were to meet Oklahoma City and New York took on Orlando.
“We’ve been just thrilled with the results,” NBA executive vice president and head of basketball strategy and growth Evan Wasch Said.
Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
The NBA’s all-time best November attendance average marks have come the past three years after the Cup was created, a record 18,207 people in 2023 with 18,086 this year and 18,012 last year.
NBA Cup games have averaged 2.2 billion views across NBA-owned social and digital platforms, a 41 percent jump over last year, with Cup group games drawing 17 percent more views compared with non-Cup matches.
Global viewership of NBA Cup telecasts jumped 10 percent over last year on the same channels (excluding China).
Players compete for the Cup title and US$530,933 for each member of the winning team, adding spice to match-ups just weeks after the season openers.
“The atmosphere — it’s a different feel,” New York’s Jalen Brunson said. “You can’t really explain it — you just know there’s something else at stake.
The idea of a Cup tournament in the style of European football had bounced around the NBA, but sorting out a bubble in which to stage games during the COVID-19 pandemic sparked new interest in how unusual ideas could bring growth.
“It really was a journey,” Wasch said. “Conversations date back 10, 15, 20 years about how we could grow the game and enhance the competition.”
“We came out of Covid and the bubble thinking about how that could influence momentum to innovate growth opportunities and some ‘outside the box’ ideas,” he said.
That came as talks were ongoing with the players union on a new collective bargaining agreement and negotiations with telecasters about new media rights deals.
The Cup brought a “long-term growth opportunity” and a new “tentpole to pump up a media package,” Wasch said.
The trick was finding a format that could create excitement yet not add too many games beyond the regular season.
The answer became making most Cup games part of the regular season, but tweaking the schedule to allow for eight teams advancing to knockout rounds.
“The balancing act fit into the existing schedule,” Wasch said.
LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers won the inaugural title in 2023 with Giannis Antetokounmpo’s Milwaukee Bucks capturing last year’s crown.
More than 40 million people in the US watched last month’s NBA Cup group stage, up 90 percent from last year, with Cup games drawing more younger viewers than non-Cup nights.
Part of the enticement has been close games. In this year’s group stage, 20 percent of games were decided by three points or fewer compared with 15.7 percent of non-Cup games.
“When we go into these games, we’re extremely excited,” Miami’s Jaime Jaquez said. “It feels like a playoff atmosphere.”
The NBA still eyes changes to improve the Cup, such as the number of group games or tweaking points tie-breakers.
An already announced change will see next year’s semi-finals played on the higher seed’s home court instead of in Las Vegas, where the final would remain as the only Cup game not also part of the regular-season schedule.
“We’re trying to build on the magic we’ve seen in those group stage games,” Wasch said.
Inclusion of European clubs, he said, is a possibility once a planned NBA Europe league is launched.
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