The National Basketball Association has added a new layer to its regular season, an in-season tournament called the NBA Cup. The tournament will split the 30 teams into six groups based on a random drawing within a team’s assigned conference.
The NBA Cup is unlikely to work due to the winning prize
The NBA created this concept in hopes of maintaining fan interest throughout the regular season. During the Sports Business Journal’s World Congress of Sports conference in April, Commissioner Adam Silver stated that the tournament is a way to put a higher importance on the regular season.
Unfortunately, the NBA Cup is unlikely to accomplish the intended goal at its inception due to the prize at stake. The league will give each player on the winning team 500 thousand dollars.
Although prize money is great for the players, it has not increased fan interest. Before the 2017-18 season, the league announced it would give each player on the team who won the All-Star Game 100 thousand dollars.
The prize money increased 100% from the previous year. Unfortunately, viewership declined by 1% going from 7.75 million to 7.65 million viewers. Furthermore, the viewership for the All-Star Game has seen a 40% decline from 2018 to 2023 despite the increase in prize money.
The NBA cup should open the door to a NBA vs Euroleague tournament
If the NBA wants the tournament to succeed, they need to institute a prize that involves their fans. A realistic change to the NBA Cup that would increase fan interest is to add the EuroLeague teams into the tournament during the subsequent collective bargaining agreement negotiations in 2029 or 2030.
Adam Silver has been on record stating he wants to meet with the leadership from the Euroleague to explore the possibility of expanding the relationship between both leagues. He spoke to the Italian newspaper ‘Il Corriere della Sera’ on January 6th, 2022, about the topic:
With EuroLeague, we have already played several preseason games with their teams. We gladly agreed to the invitation for a common table: the goal is not to take over Europe but to work together to improve the basketball environment of the continent. We can’t wait to resume the talks.
Thirteen months later, Adam Silver told the media that the league office had considered an in-season tournament with overseas teams. However, the league is concerned about scheduling as they want to avoid elongating the season:
“We’ve talked about an in-season tournament to create some additional excitement during the regular season. It may be that at some point, there’s an in-season tournament, but it includes clubs from outside the NBA. So those are all ideas we’ll continue to look at… “I think it’s a question of creating the best possible competition. Part of the issue is the cycle of our season versus the EuroLeague.”
“I don’t think it’s realistic that a team, for example, would finish the Finals, after what we’ve all talked about is a very long season, and then go yet play in another tournament. And then, because of player movement in this league, it’s a different team the following fall, and they’re not conditioned yet.
The concept of including EuroLeague teams in the NBA Cup has resurfaced in 2024. On November 22nd, 2024, Jake Fischer wrote that Adam Sliver has been considering a EuroLeague vs NBA tournament for a decade.
It’s not hard to believe a decade ago, when Silver’s office first began conceptualizing ways of livening up the NBA calendar, that one early idea for the NBA Cup would have featured all 30 teams, plus two additional European clubs, according to league sources, brought together for a single-elimination tournament. Think half of the traditional 64-team (apologies, Dayton) March Madness formula. That would’ve certainly addressed one constant criticismlodged by a certain older scribe who operates this Substack. The NBA’s hopes, in such a scenario, would have been to draw name-brand, power programs like Real Madrid or Barcelona, sources said, although it seemed few overseas teams would be willing to essentially pause their seasons without compensatory benefit.
Potential Tournament Format
Fortunately for the league, a slight calendar alteration can solve the schedule issue. If the NBA reduces its regular season schedule to 72-75 games, it will allow them to add an extra round to the back end of the playoffs without extending the schedule beyond a max of 110 games (including playoffs).
The extra round would feature the NBA vs. the Euroleague champion for the World Series of Basketball. The additional series would create new storylines to elevate fan interest. For example, the media can debate which league is the best or who has the best teams globally.
In conclusion, the NBA Cup is the first step in Adam Silver’s plan to introduce interleague regular season or playoff games with the Euroleague.
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