The NBA is working on replicating the success of European soccer tournaments such as the Copa del Rey in Spain or the FA Cup in England, to add a new tournament to its calendar, which would be played during the regular season and could see the light of day in 2022-23 or 2023-24.
ESPN journalist Adrian Wojnarowski, one of the main sources of information about the NBA in the United States, indicated that the idea of the tournament is one of commissioner Adam Silver’s dreams and that the NBA and the NBA Players Association are already discussing the format.
The creation of the tournament It would cut the NBA regular season from the current 82 games to 78. Therefore, and so that the players do not oppose the new competition due to a possible loss of emoluments, each of the members of the champion team would initially win 1 million dollars, although this amount could increase.
For the NBA and teams, the incentives would be “juicy” new television and sponsorship deals.
The participants in the tournament would be the 30 teams that make up the NBA and the final of the tournament would be played before the Christmas holidays.
The tournament format, as presented by Wojnarowski, would have a preliminary phase from which the top eight teams would come out. From there, the elimination would be direct with the dispute of the quarterfinals, semifinals and finals to a single game.
The main obstacle, according to ESPN, would be the financial interests of the great NBA teams because cutting the regular season would mean the loss of several million dollars of income.
But Silver, who has apparently been interested in the success of European soccer competitions parallel to national leagues for years, believes that the new tournament would be a great financial and audience success.
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