NBA Cup goes from 'outside the box' idea to smash hit
The third edition of the NBA's mid-season tournament continues with semi-final games on Saturday in Las Vegas as the San Antonio Spurs meet Oklahoma City and New York takes on Orlando.
"We've been just thrilled with the results," NBA executive vice president and head of basketball strategy and growth Evan Wasch told AFP.
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% jump over last year, with Cup group games drawing 17% more views compared to non-Cup matches.
Global viewership of NBA Cup telecasts jumped 10% over last year on the same channels (excluding China).
Players compete for the Cup title and $530,933 for each member of the winning team, adding spice to matchups 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.
"When there's a chance to win something, go and win it."
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 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."
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 United States watched last month's NBA Cup group stage, up 90% from 2024, with Cup games drawing more younger viewers than non-Cup nights.
The final week of NBA Cup group play averaged 2.19 million US viewers over all telecasters, the league's best such regular-season mark since early in the 2018-19 campaign.
NBA Cup average audiences for all of November were 1.44 million, a 26% jump compared to before the event began.
New telecaster NBC drew 2.7 million US viewers -- a 122% jump from 2024 -- for a Tuesday group stage double-header and the group stage finales a day after the US Thanksgiving holiday drew 2.09 million, a 121% jump over the same period last year.
'Playoff atmosphere'
Part of the enticement has been close games. In this year's group stage, 20% of games were decided by three points or fewer compared to 15.7% 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 will 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.