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NBA commissioner Adam Silver has announced that next season’s NBA All-Star game will feature Team USA vs. Team World. The NBA has been trying to fix the All-Star game and its lack of competitiveness for a while now and involving national pride may do the trick.
According to Adam Silver, who was appearing on the Fox Sports 1 TV program Breakfast Ball, the NHL’s 4 Nations Face-Off from this year, which replaced its traditional All-Star game, was a key factor in the NBA making this decision.
The NBA’s All-Star game has been a routine source of criticism for the league as the players have been accused of lacking effort, as evidenced by the outlandish final scores of the game.
In an effort to improve the game, the NBA tweaked the format this past season to make it a tournament-style game with four teams of eight players each. That format tweak ultimately didn’t provide any notable improvement in the quality of games, however.
“I’m not exactly sure what the format will be yet. I paid a lot of attention to what the NHL did, which was a huge success,” Silver said.
“Next, as part of our new media deals, the All-Star Game returns to NBC … It so happens that next season will be smack in the middle of the winter Olympics. So the game will be on NBC and the very day we’re on will be the lead-in winter Olympic events and coming out of the All-Star Game, which will now be in the afternoon instead of the evening, there will be more Olympic events. So what better time to feature some form of USA against the World.”
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver confirms there will be USA vs. the World in the 2026 All-Star Game 👀
"I'm not exactly sure what the format will be yet. I paid a lot of attention to what the NHL did, which was a huge success."@craigcartonlive | @DannyParkins | @markschlereth pic.twitter.com/WsEzhe4Jkk
— Breakfast Ball (@BrkfstBallOnFS1) June 4, 2025
As Silver mentioned, next season will see the NBA kick-off its new broadcasting contracts with ABC/ESPN, NBC, and Prime Video.