The NBA Cup has been a hit with players and the league’s core fans, but it hasn’t captured the imagination of casual fans. Yet.
LAS VEGAS — The arena was mostly full, the Bucks were dancing at center court, and Damian Lillard was holding a trophy aloft under a rain of confetti — something he had never gotten to do before. In their locker room, the Bucks were loud and celebrating.
“It’s the best feeling ever — just winning,” NBA Cup,” tournament MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo said. “We had this goal as a team and we have accomplished it. I’m very proud of everybody. I’m so happy for our team. We got our first trophy together and this is just the beginning.”
Yet, in a sign of how both players and teams are treating the NBA Cup, the champagne room the NBA set up for the Bucks to have that celebration and drench each other went untouched — Milwaukee didn’t want to make too much of this win with 70% of the NBA season still to be played (a lesson two-time cup winning coach Darvin Ham passed along).
All of which begs the question:
Is the NBA Cup a success?
Yes.
And no. It was always going to take time to build what Adam Silver envisioned. How you view the event’s success depends upon the lens through which you choose to view the NBA Cup.
The players like it, and with that the games tend to have a little more intensity. To a man, the players on all four teams in Las Vegas for the cup semifinals and finals — and other players who spoke about it but whose teams didn’t advance — praise the NBA Cup.
“I like it. I think it provides excitement for us as players and excitement for the fans,” Lillard said on an off day. “It’s something on the line before you get to the playoffs. I think it just brings out the best in us.
“You get in these Cup games where the floor is different. The uniform is different. You know that we’re playing for something. There’s a prize at the end, obviously, a trip to Vegas and ultimately just an opportunity to win something as a team.”Don’t forget the money. Make no mistake, the half-a-million prize money for the winning team motivates players.
Motivated players has led to the NBA Cup games passing the eye test of being played at a higher level and with more intensity than a standard November or December regular season game. Players are diving on the court for loose balls and playing with an increased physicality and focus in these games.
Who is watching?
Better games has made the NBA’s core fan base happy — tried and true NBA fans, the ones with League Pass who are listening to NBA podcasts (and the podcasters themselves) love it.
The NBA Cup is a hit with people who already love the NBA.
However, part of the goal of the NBA Cup was to draw in casual fans and turn some eyeballs away from the NFL and college football during November and December.
Nobody thinks that has happened.
NBA ratings overall are down this season, 19% year-over-year. However, Adam Silver called the dip part of a broader trend of cable viewership being down, and it’s also hitting other sports (including college basketball and the NHL). At the very least, domestic television ratings are a complex soup as a younger generation of viewers with a host of streaming options consume sports in a different way — almost as many people stream NBA games now as sit in front of a television watching the game (although right now the business model is primarily built on that later idea).
The NBA Cup didn’t spark a reverse in those ratings concerns. The NBA was prepared for a little dip in ratings because a year ago the Lakers — with LeBron James and the massive Lakers nation fan base — won the whole thing. It also helped the energy in the T Mobile Arena that Los Angeles is a cheap and short one-hour plane flight (or four-hour drive) away from L.A. While the Atlanta Hawks had a sizable contingent of fans in the arena for their semifinal game on Saturday, that was more because the NFL’s Falcons played the Raiders on Monday night, so the fans were already here. Fans who find out on Tuesday or Wednesday that their team will play in Las Vegas on Saturday must make a significant commitment to be there.
Changes are coming to the NBA Cup
The NBA Cup is not a finished product and will look different next year. Not the least of those reasons is that the semifinals and finals will have a new broadcast partner, Amazon Prime, as part of the league’s massive new television deal.
What other changes could we see? Nothing is set but here is some of what has been floated:
• Doubling the length of the group stage to eight games. Executives mentioned this to Tim Bontemps of ESPN, suggesting it would both build more interest and allow the better teams (Boston and Cleveland this season, for example) to move on rather than get bounced quickly because of a loss or two. This also would necessitate a longer NBA Cup campaign, which leads to…
• Moving the NBA Cup later in the season. This has been floated before and reportedly discussed with Amazon. The premise is simple: Stay away from football. While part of the original idea was that the NBA Cup was to draw the eyeballs of more casual fans away from football, that has not proven to work out. Would moving the NBA Cup to a later date help with that? Maybe, but now it would be competing with the NBA All-Star Game, the trade deadline, and the end-of-season playoff push. There is no more natural fit on the calendar than where it is now, but it’s being discussed.
• Semifinal games in a home arena, only championship in Las Vegas. A mid-season trip to Las Vegas is another clear motivator for players who crave a break from the marathon grind of the NBA regular season.
However, putting the games in Las Vegas — in the Pacific time zone — with only days notice of which teams will be in the final four (let alone the championship game) leads to low energy in the building. The NBA Cup championship game Tuesday started at 5:30 local time, and it had the energy in the T-Moble Arena of a mid-major conference tournament semifinal day game because of it. If Atlanta vs. Milwaukee had been in one of their home areas, would the vibe have been different? However, in multi-use arenas (most around the league), this becomes a scheduling nightmare of dates that must be left open.
Silver hinted nothing will change on this front for next season, but it’s something to watch.
• Move the championship game around. The NBA is trying to build a tradition in Las Vegas with the NBA Cup. However, what would the vibe be if the final four were in Madison Square Garden in New York City (even if the Knicks did not advance)? New Orleans? Miami? Seattle? Why not move the NBA Cup final around more like the All-Star Game? Would that create more buzz in a market?
• Play all the games (group and knockout rounds) consecutively over two/three weeks rather than spread it out. The NBA tries to differentiate the NBA Cup games from regular season games with different (occasionally blinding) courts and uniforms, but the effect on casual fans can be confusing. During group play, Tuesday nights are NBA Cup games (that count toward the cup and regular season), Wednesday and Thursday are regular season games, and then on Friday, they are NBA Cup games again. For a casual viewer, it’s confusing.
Why not designate two or three weeks as NBA Cup weeks and play every game straight through? Every night in that window is NBA Cup night. Make it feel a little more like a tournament Americans are used to (the current, broken-up format is closer to how European soccer in-season tournaments are played, but that is baked into the culture of the sport in a way it is not here).
