LAS VEGAS \u2013 Even Christmas needed longer than three years to catch on. But the NBA Cup, in its third year, is already being reviewed.<\/p>\n
The NBA is not under contract with T-Mobile Arena on the south end of the Vegas Strip to hold its in-season championship next year, league sources said, and the league is underwhelmed by the on-the-ground enthusiasm for the event.<\/p>\n
Commissioner Adam Silver created the NBA Cup in 2023 to generate more interest earlier in the calendar among both fans and the players, and it has largely worked. Ratings are up, and attendance for the Cup semifinals and finals in Las Vegas would appear to be steady, given that there is no foreseeable change to two key dynamics. The final four teams aren\u2019t known until just a few days before, and the league wants the championship held at a neutral site.<\/p>\n
In September, the league announced that beginning next year, the semifinals would be held at home sites. Its new media partner for the NBA Cup, Amazon Prime Video, wants a more compelling broadcast, which it believes is generated by larger, more partisan home crowds. But the NBA and Prime Video are still set on holding the championship game at a neutral site, and they\u2019re discussing if the arenas could be fuller, and louder, if the venue was somewhere other than Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
Silver is scheduled to address the media before Tuesday\u2019s NBA Cup finale between the San Antonio Spurs and New York Knicks, and the topic is sure to come up.<\/p>\n
For three years, the league has signed one-year contracts with T-Mobile Arena to host the NBA Cup. No signed contract is in place for next season, but that just means the event site is in doubt \u2013 not the Cup itself.<\/p>\n
A huge portion of Prime Video\u2019s media rights package with the NBA is the Cup. An in-season tournament is also included in the collective bargaining agreement between players and owners. The cost to the league to make Prime Video whole without a Cup, to say nothing of the headache of reopening the CBA early to cancel the Cup, would be enormous. The tournament, in other words, is going to be here for the next 10 years, at minimum.<\/p>\n
By the time teams reach the semifinals, players and coaches are typically genuinely appreciative of the experience. The players love the prize money \u2013 $530,000 per player to the tournament winner \u2013 and the coaches appreciate playing in more meaningful games earlier in the year to prepare for the playoffs. The organizations use the trip to Vegas to celebrate success on location; corporate sponsors and players\u2019 families are often invited guests of the participating teams.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got to give the NBA credit,\u201d Knicks coach Mike Brown said last week, echoing virtually every coach who has sat at an NBA Cup podium in Las Vegas. \u201cEverybody naturally fights change or wants to say something against change. I was one of those guys when they came up with the Cup idea, I was like, \u2018Oh, man, for what? In the middle of the season? We are trying to do this and that and practice and blah, blah, blah.\u2019 And as time goes on, you have to give \u2014 starting with Adam, you have to give him a lot of credit for being innovative when it comes to things happening in the NBA, and this is one of them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a really, really neat thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spurs star guard De\u2019Aaron Fox said the players like the Cup because \u201cpeople like money.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople want to play for something,\u201d Fox said on Monday. \u201cIn our locker room with the two-ways and everything, people want to win this. You can go into any locker room, if someone says they don\u2019t want to win it, they\u2019re lying.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s fun being able to go out into an environment like this and try to win a prize like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The NBA isn\u2019t the only major basketball entity looking outside of Las Vegas. Albeit on a much smaller scale, USA Basketball has for years held its training camps for major international competitions in Sin City, but sources within the program suggest that could change for the 2027 FIBA World Cup and 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.<\/p>\n
There is also an ongoing sports betting scandal inside the NBA, and some of the alleged crimes involving current and former players and coaches took place at rigged poker games in Las Vegas. If the league was considering moving off the Strip to separate itself from illegal betting, it would be understandable, but the Las Vegas Summer League isn\u2019t going anywhere. So, the same perception problem would still exist.<\/p>\n
Word of the NBA\u2019s growing disappointment with Las Vegas as host site for the Cup spread during and after Game 1 of semifinal Saturday, when the smallest announced crowd for a Cup final four game of 16,697 watched the Knicks beat the Orlando Magic. There were visibly vacant rows of seats in the upper deck, and more than a few empty chairs in the lower bowl.<\/p>\n
The Knicks are one of the most popular teams in the world, with fans spread out all over and a New York-based support system that travels well. So, perhaps it was a little surprising to see that many empty seats for Saturday\u2019s game, but most of the people who attend Cup games likely live in greater Las Vegas. (One indicator: the crowd chants \u201cKNIGHTS\u201d at the point in the national anthem when the song comes to \u201cgave proof through the night\u201d \u2026 like the home crowd does for Las Vegas Golden Knights NHL games.)<\/p>\n
In the second game on Saturday, between the Spurs and the Oklahoma City Thunder, there was an announced sellout (18,519 fans \u2013 same crowd for last year\u2019s Cup finale between Oklahoma City and Milwaukee). That game featured the reigning NBA champs and the league\u2019s MVP in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, against perhaps the next face of the league in Victor Wembanyama, in a tense and loud environment.<\/p>\n
Saturday was the last night for the national rodeo finals, another annual event in Las Vegas, and San Antonio and Oklahoma City are definitely two teams that come from rodeo country, but there weren\u2019t too many gallon hats in the audience. It was far more likely that local fans were more enthused about Gilgeous-Alexander and Wemby, and 6 p.m. is a better time of day to come out for a game.<\/p>\n
The first Cup semifinals, in 2023, were played on a Thursday night and included the Los Angeles Lakers, who dominate the Las Vegas market. The Lakers\u2019 Cup semifinal, and their Cup championship game, were both sellouts.<\/p>\n
The NBA has, each year, distributed free tickets to local schools. And there have been empty seats and muted applause in years past (save for the Laker games), even on the nights when ticket takers count a sellout. But it\u2019s unclear how moving the championship outside of Las Vegas would change that.<\/p>\n
If there is a city or venue that wants to throw money at the NBA, and market the Cup championship in a way that Vegas has not, perhaps the league would do well to consider its options. But simply changing locations as a reaction to the reception, just three years into an otherwise successful experiment, might not do much to grow the popularity of a tournament that is growing anyway.<\/p>\n
The league says TV viewership for Cup group stage games was up 90 percent this year, the tournament\u2019s first year on Prime Video, and group stage games for all three years of the Cup\u2019s existence drew more viewers than games in October and November in 2022 \u2013 the last season there was no Cup.<\/p>\n
The tournament had never been marketed like it was this year with Prime Video entering the fold. But at the start of each of the last three seasons, the Cup concept and on-court action has been explained, and promoted, to fans. They\u2019re starting to tune in.<\/p>\n
Remind them, no matter where they live, over and over, that the championship is in Las Vegas, and the excitement on the ground will likely grow \u2013 much like it did a few years after the NBA Summer League was established<\/a> \u2026 in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n