Sports fans love this time of year. We get to watch the culmination of the baseball season in the World Series, with the NHL and NFL also getting into full swing. Hoops fans also finally get to see some more action after a long summer, with the start of the new season. But for the last two years that has also meant something else.
The NBA regular season now comes with an added extra. The NBA Cup is an in-season tournament that adds something new to the basketball calendar. Unlike many other sports – especially in Europe – US major sports leagues don’t tend to have a bespoke cup competition as well as the regular season and playoffs. But the NBA is leading the way.
The league had long wanted to do something to ensure eyeballs were on them at a time when the start of the season overlapped with the NFL and college football. The NBA Cup was the result and now you can now watch all the games on TV as well as make your predictions on the BetOnline betting markets. This competition is still new though – so we thought we would offer a quick explainer.
The NBA Cup is Back
Last Season
The NBA Cup first appeared for the 2023-24 season, although it was then known as the less-catchy ‘In-Season Tournament’. The rebranding this year goes further by including the sponsor’s name in the official title – The Emirates NBA Cup. It was so popular that the league is now making it an annual fixture of the regular season.
With the idea to bring some interest to the early part of what is a long NBA season, new courts and uniforms highlighted the games and added an extra reason for teams to win games. The format of the competition was very similar to this year’s (which we will go through in a moment). The Lakers ended up winning the inaugural event, which will have gone down very well with the league’s marketing teams.
The Format
The 30 NBA teams are split into six groups of five teams, three for the Eastern Conference and three for the West. The teams are seeded depending on the performance from last year and randomly drawn. Each team will play each other in the group just once, with the six group winners advancing to a knockout stage.
The next two teams – one from the East and one from the West groups – with the best record will also make it to the quarterfinals as Wild Cards. All of these games will be played at the usual home courts of the teams involved. The semifinals and final then take place at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
The Look
The league obviously wanted to make this tournament stand out from the crowd and fans were initially a little taken aback to see full paint jobs and exclusive uniforms on show. But these are all further marketing opportunities for the NBA and something that the fans have really gotten on board with.
The actual games are exactly the same as any other regular season match-up, although there is the chance for points differential coming into play to split teams with the same amount of wins in the group section.
The Prize
The main prize is the right to call yourself the NBA Cup champion. But there are other incentives for the players involved. All members of the NBA Cup-winning team will receive $500,000. The losers in the final will pick up a cool $200,000. Any player losing in the semifinals gets $100,000 and if they depart the competition a round earlier, it is just $50,000.
Looking at the latest average salary number for NBA players, those amounts could add up to around a 5% bonus for the majority of the players in the league. There is also an MVP award for the best player and the selection of an All-Tournament Team. With some coaches traditionally looking to rest players, the rewards on offer make even games at this time of the year important.
The Impact
That last point is one of the most important to understand when it comes to the impact of the NBA Cup. The league has been very clever in not simply introducing another competition into the basketball season. That might have felt exploitative and reduced the games themselves to the level of exhibition or pre-season meetings.
All NBA Cup games count towards the teams’ regular season record. There is some space left in the schedule, so all teams still play just the 82 games, even if they depart this competition before the knockout stages. The championship game is the only one that acts as a standalone event. If anything, adding an NBA Cup element to regular season games lends them even more importance.
The Future
There is no doubt that the NBA Cup has been a roaring success. When the idea of the competition was first announced, there was some concern at how it would fit into the season. But the coaches and players definitely bought into the idea and it now adds a little something extra to early-season games.
The regular season suddenly has more on the line and the league has the opportunity to make even more money by selling game rights and attracting new sponsorship deals. It really does seem to be a win-win. Most importantly, the fans also welcomed this new competition and it now seems very unlikely that it will disappear anytime soon.
With no extra games for players and coaches to complain about and an exciting new championship to win, the NBA Cup will be something to look forward to every October from now on.
