ESPN and TNT executives are betting that the NBA’s first-ever in-season tournament will deliver an early-season ratings slam dunk.
The in-season tournament, which debuts November 3, is the first for one of the four major U.S. sports leagues — the WNBA stages a similar Commissioner’s Cup in-season tournament. All 30 teams will participate in the five-week tournament to crown a champion on December 9.
Here’s what fans should know about the tournament:
- Each of the 30 teams has been placed in one of three randomly drawn divisions within the Eastern and Western Conferences based on their won-loss records from the 2023-23 season.
- Teams will play four “group play” games against other teams in their division on Tuesday and Friday nights, except Election Day, November 7. TNT will air two tournament games each Tuesday, while ESPN will televise two Friday night tournament games.
- Every team will play the other four teams in their group once, with the winners of the six groups and one wild card team from each conference advancing to the quarterfinal “knockout rounds” on December 4 and 5.
- Teams that don’t reach the quarterfinal round will play two games on December 6 and December 8. The semifinal round will occur on December 7, while the four teams that lose in the quarterfinals will face each other on December 8.
- The two semifinal-round winners will play in the Championship Game on December 9 in Las Vegas.
- All statistics from the in-tournament games will count toward the regular season, except the championship game.
During each tournament game, the NBA will feature a team-specific tournament floor design for each home team. The players will also wear their City Edition uniforms during tournament games.
NBA DEBUTS IN-SEASON TOURNAMENT COURTS FOR ALL 30 TEAMS pic.twitter.com/OHmOA8LYGLOctober 30, 2023
ESPN VP of production Tim Corrigan said the new floors and the unique uniforms will give the play-in games a different look than regular-season contests. Still, it will be up to the networks to educate the fans about the new tournament.
“Our No. 1 thing is we’ve got to educate people because it’s new,” Corrigan said during a Wednesday conference call. “Like anything new, we have to keep talking about the education of the event.”
Warner Bros. Discovery Sports executive VP and chief content officer Craig Barry expects fans to eventually gravitate to the tournament once they learn more about the format. He pointed to similar growing pains for the league’s postseason play-in format that launched in 2020, which was initially criticized by some but now has become a major draw for the league.
“Some of the best games in the playoffs have come from the play-in games because the one-and-done games are incredibly competitive,” he said. “We appreciate the passion that the NBA has around this. You can’t be afraid to try new things, and the fact that a primary sports league is doing something like this speaks to the progress not only in the sports landscape but in the media landscape.”
ESPN NBA analyst J.J. Redick also downplayed any potential criticism of the tournament, saying that the games will not alter the regular-season schedule except the tournament finals. The two finalists will play 83 games instead of 82 and individual player statistics will not count.
“These are regular-season games that actually count twice,” he said. “They’re counting toward the In-Season Tournament, but they are also counting toward your regular season record and playoff record. Those games are going to be played anyway.”
