The NBA is eager to restart talks with its teams and the Players Association about adding a mid-season tournament, sources told ESPN.
Commissioner Adam Silver, a proponent of the idea, has been optimistic that the success of the play-in could re-engage teams in another tournament idea that had been discussed before the pandemic but never came. to a vote.
The NBA has pushed to incorporate more competitive elements into the league schedule in recent years, including changes to the All-Star Game such as player draft and scoring targets.
The league would need an agreement with the Association and a two-thirds majority of its 30 teams to incorporate a tournament plan during the season. The NBA could begin exploring the idea again with teams and the NBPA as soon as this year, the sources added. It’s too late for the league to consider the idea for the 2021-22 season.
The original mid-season tournament proposals focused on a model European soccer event that would tie into the traditional NBA schedule. The league had discussed an eight-team single-elimination tournament that would be incentivized with payouts of $ 1 million per player to the winning team.
Among the questions the league probably still has to address to teams: Could franchises, especially those in big markets, be assured that there would be no loss of revenue by shortening the regular season to 78 games to accommodate the tournament? Some teams had been hesitant to incur short-term losses by potentially missing two home dates, especially when those games had been worth between $ 2.5 million and $ 4 million in pre-pandemic times.
Star player participation is revealing in achieving the league’s goals of impacting fan interest, television ratings, and revenue.
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