The semifinals of the third NBA Cup, initially called the In-Season Tournament in 2023, will be played on Saturday in Las Vegas. The NBA, satisfied with the event in year three, is choosing not to tinker with its placement in the calendar for 2026.
“We will be in December for the knockout rounds again next year,” NBA EVP and head of basketball strategy & growth Evan Wasch said. “For now, we’ve been really pleased with what we’ve seen in this November-December time frame.”
Multiple metrics illustrate the NBA Cup’s success in driving early-season interest. Social media views on NBA-owned platforms in November have doubled since 2019, with the biggest year-over-year spike occurring in the first year of the tournament in 2023. This season, NBA Cup nights are averaging 24% more views than non-Cup nights.
NBA Cup group-play games over the past three seasons have averaged 1.44 million viewers, up 26% versus comparable November nights during the last season before the tournament. Although TV ratings comparisons to this season are tricky because the league has new media partners this year (including NBC), the final week of this year’s NBA Cup group stage was the most-viewed week of the regular season since the 2018-19 season, excluding opening weeks and Christmas.
In terms of corporate partners, the tournament is also progressing positively, with sponsors increasing from seven in 2023 to 14 in 2025.
Wasch noted that no determinations have been made beyond 2026 with regard to the Cup’s timing. January, however, is a more crowded and uncertain spot in the sports calendar, with the NFL’s recent playoff expansion in 2022 and the potential further expansion of the College Football Playoff.
The NBA is not opposed to tweaks—even a change as drastic as European teams competing would be on the table—but the league is not in a hurry.
“The vision we had with the Cup several years ago was to create a second championship,” Wasch said. “The momentum has built the last two years, but this was always a long-term vision … that it could become a real resume and legacy-building basketball event for players and teams. That might take five, 10 years, or a generation even to take hold in the way that we think it can.”
With the format staying the same from 2024, the biggest changes in 2025 might be in the presentation. The knockout rounds are exclusively aired by new media partner Amazon, which broadcast its first NBA game seven weeks ago but has made its mark immediately, since almost every game on Prime Video so far has been a Cup game.
“This is [Amazon’s] event. This is what they’re going to throw their weight behind in trying to do things differently,” NBA SVP and head of broadcasting Paul Benedict said.
For both the semifinals and the final, the national anthem performance and live starting lineup introductions will be part of the broadcast. This decision comes after the 2025 NBA Finals, when the league reintroduced live starting lineup intros before Game 5 in response to fan complaints that the Finals broadcast felt too similar to the regular season. “The branding part of it, which was a takeaway from the Finals last year, has been important,” Benedict said. “We’re trying to truly event-ize this.”
But the on-court product comes first. It helps that roughly 60% of Cup games have been “clutch” games (having a point differential of five points or fewer within the last five minutes). That’s higher than both the regular-season rate of 56% and the postseason rate of 53% over the past three years.
The buy-in from players has been crucial, but is not surprising, considering the tournament was negotiated between the league and its players union during labor talks in 2023. Orlando Magic forward Paolo Banchero said the environment “simulates the playoffs a little bit,” echoing sentiments from other players about the competitiveness of the games.
Wasch says the league would like to build even more urgency around the earlier round-robin games. They are, in a way, single-elimination-lite—eight of the 22 teams that have gone 3-1 in the group stage have not advanced to the knockout round.
“A group stage feels like you’ve got leeway from a competitive standpoint, but it’s very little,” Wasch said. “If you want to ensure you’re going to advance in the Cup you have to go 4-0 to guarantee it … I don’t think that has taken hold yet, but I think will over time.”
The biggest change in 2026 will be playing the semifinals in home markets, with only the final played at a neutral site, so that teams can get one more round of fan engagement in their home arenas. Down the road, that final location also may not be Vegas.
“Whether it’s here in Vegas, or another market in the future,” NBA EVP and global head of events Kelly Flatow said, the focus is on “building up the championship into this incredible crown jewel.”