Last Updated:
The NBA is open to making changes to the Cup — big and small — and will continue to review the format in the coming years in an effort to increase fan engagement and to improve the viewing experience.
The Emirates NBA Cup (X)
Why should it only be a party in the USA? The NBA believes that it’s going to be time to go international, as the league is contemplating integrating international basketball teams into the fray of the NBA Cup.
The Emirates NBA Cup has understandably exhibited some growing pains. Yet, despite the multitude of questions it may have already posed for fans in particular, the league continues to show faith and trust the process for time being.
In a roundtable discussion with international media agencies, NBA’s Executive Vice President of Basketball Strategy, Evan Wasch, expounded on the other side of things, let’s say the growing gains, that the league experienced with the advent of the NBA Cup so far.
“For the group play this year, the seven group play nights of those 14 games were 7% higher on average than non-group play games in the window. So, it’s showing that there’s some sort of elevated interest in the Cup games,” Wasch stated.
“They were slightly down from last year, which I think part of it was some of the injury issues, player absences, maybe some blowouts in some of those games. There’s always going to be present, but we’re still seeing really strong performance for those games, especially when looked at compared to other non-Cup games so far this season.”
One major idea that has been floated in an effort to increase fan engagement has been to include teams from across international leagues to partake in the NBA Cup: in an effort to bring in more competition and variety for the fans.
“On the international piece, yes, we’ve been actively engaged with FIBA and other stakeholders in Europe about potential opportunities to grow basketball further with high-level competition in Europe, and we think there’s a tremendous opportunity there,” Wasch stated.
“If we were to do that, you could also envision down-the-line competitions between NBA teams and teams around the world.
“Obviously, we have Basketball Africa League, that’s continuing to grow. So there would absolutely be interest in trying to create cross-league competitions in that world, but I think we’re certainly years away at best from being able to implement things like that.”
Another obvious way to bring more eyes to the league would be to distribute it to more. And that’s where Amazon has now come in.
Earlier this year, it was revealed that the NBA had ushered in two new media rights partners with the deal — Amazon and NBC — and retained ESPN and ABC.
With players like Amazon coming in, tasked to distribute NBA games globally as part of Prime Video, another opportunity arises for the NBA, specifically the NBA Cup, to garner more international popularity.
“We’re really excited next year that Amazon is going to be the distribution partner for the NBA Cup. So, they’re gonna have a real interest and excitement with us in continuing to build this (the league and the cup) into a global property,” exclaimed Wasch.
Wasch also stated that the NBA is open to making changes to the Cup — big and small — and will continue to review the format in the coming years.
“But if there’s other rule changes, format changes, scheduling changes, technologies that we could deploy to really improve the game, we’re absolutely committed to doing that, so I expect you’ll witness continued incremental improvement every year in the way that we drive the product for our fans.”
