Getty Image / Nic Antaya
The NBA has something new coming to its schedule.
Some time in the near future, the league is expected to add an in-season tournament.
It’s something that nobody asked for, but the league is going ahead with it and it turns out the league’s revenue projections for the tournament are huge.
During an episode of the No Cap Room podcast, Yahoo’s Jake Fischer revealed that Adam Silver said the league is projecting $1 billion in revenue from the tournament.
New episode of No Cap Room with @YourManDevine is up now from @BallDontLie.
Some early conference finals impressions, updates on the coaching carousel, and a whole lot more.
YOUTUBE: https://t.co/Y7heqEoB0F
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— Jake Fischer (@JakeLFischer) May 18, 2023
Expecting to make a ton of extra money was always the obvious answer for why the NBA wanted to do this in the first place.
There is no other practical explanation for adding games to the NBA schedule.
The fans and players already can’t be bothered to care about all of the 82 games that are already being played before the playoffs each year.
The NBA is clearly hoping that this will be basketball’s version of the Champions League, but there’s one big issue.
This mid-season tournament doesn’t provide fans with anything new. The Champions League lets us watch the best teams from around Europe go head to head for a trophy that is completely separate from their own leagues. That trophy is the most important one a European team can win in a given year.
This mid-season tournament is just more games between the same teams that we watch play each other every week with the prize at the end being a less important trophy than the one you get for winning the Finals.
Despite all of that, it seems the NBA believes people are going to tune in and that it’s going to make them a whole lot of money. Maybe these games will at least be ones where fans can buy tickets knowing their favorite players won’t be resting.