Exploring the NBA's New Mid-Season Tournament
Cover Art by Abigail Seguin
In major U.S. team sports leagues, the idea of winning a championship trophy is viewed as the one and only true demonstration of victory for a team. No game is bigger than the Superbowl, and no series of games is bigger than the World Series, NBA finals, or Stanley Cup. Sport fans wait the entire 6 month season to find out which team will win it all and go down in the history books.
You may be wondering “Since people love championship game competition so much, why don’t the leagues just add more championships per season?” Well, I suppose they could, but this would minimize the rarity of these events and the stakes that these games have. The year should be concluded with one clear winner… not 5 NBA teams who all won a championship in the same year.
With league commissioners and analysts scared to implement unsuccessful changes to leagues that have been around for 50+ years, it is not often we see major changes at all. Regarding the addition of mid-season or in-season tournaments, we have never seen any of the 4 U.S. major sport leagues adopt this idea –that is until Adam Silver and the NBA announced the first ever NBA Cup, an in-season tournament held a month before the halfway point of the 2023-24 NBA season.
To further understand what this in-season tournament will look like this year, I will break down some of the key features and rules. First up is “Group Play,” then the “Knockout Rounds” including the quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals. Here is the synopsis on the tournament format straight from the NBA:
“All 30 teams have been randomly drawn into groups of five within their conference based on won-loss records from the 2022-23 regular season. Beginning Nov. 3 and continuing through Tuesday, Nov. 28, each team will play four designated Group Play games on “Tournament Nights” – one game against each opponent in its group, with two games at home and two on the road. Eight teams will advance to the Knockout Rounds… The Knockout Rounds will be single-elimination games in the Quarterfinals, Semifinals and Championship. The winning team will compete for a large monetary prize pool and the new In-Season Tournament trophy, the NBA Cup.” – NBA.com
The announcement of the tournament was faced with mixed reviews, with people praising the creativity and addition of competitive games while also questioning how the NBA could make this change so quickly and get players, coaches, the media, and fans on board with the high stakes of the event. In a league driven by fan support and attendance, the main struggle for Silver was figuring out how the league could market this event to fans to make them understand the significance of these games, the rules of the tournament, and get them excited about a new championship their teams will play for.
First, we must address the criticisms of the idea by fans, and what hasn’t worked well in the first tournament ever. There are two largely aesthetic concerns with the tournament: the colorful courts used in tournament games and the jerseys that teams wore during these games. Many courts are bright and an eyesore, but the NBA could easily counter this with a more neutral colored redesign. In terms of the jersey complaints, this is more a knock on Nike and their City Edition jerseys than towards the tournament itself. More importantly, though, there were many complaints before the tournament started regarding confusion over the rules and formatting. Although the NBA is unlikely to change this formatting, complaints should continue to shrink with each passing tournament.
On a more positive note, the Group Play round officially ended on Tuesday, November 28th, and fans on social media appear to be excited about the future of this tournament and the upcoming games. One of the successful marketing campaigns came as a series of commercials based in a Las Vegas casino where notable NBA players mimicked an Ocean’s Twelve style robbery to secure the first ever NBA cup with Michael Imperioli narrating and promoting excitement towards the tournament. When it comes to accessible feedback, it appears as though fans are both streaming and posting more content about tournament games than any other regular season contests. In a study conducted by Deloitte, researchers found that over 40% of Gen Z sports fans will watch games as a result of following athletes on social media. Overall, fans should be encouraged and excited about the implementation of this tournament into the NBA season.
While there will certainly be challenges, more competitive games being added to the schedule and integrated with the regular season will get players to play with maximum effort to bring the first ever NBA cup back to their home city. Players on the winning team earn a $1M bonus, which motivates other league players to work harder and earn this financial advantage. Furthermore, some hope to win the season tournament to help other players in the league, not only to further their personal wealth. The potential success of this tournament will be a key factor in the further integration of tournaments into the other 3 major U.S. sport leagues. This would provide benefits to football, baseball, and hockey fans in a brand new way.
