NBA In-Season Tournament—how the league is marketing its ‘second championship’

The NBA season, which began on Tuesday, will be the first to include two championships. In addition to the traditional postseason chase for the Larry O’Brien trophy, teams this year will compete for the NBA Cup, the prize in the inaugural In-Season Tournament. Stitched into the doldrums of the season in November and early December, the new tournament will test whether the NBA can turn games that only meant so much into something more. Potentially, the new tournament represents a marketable new tentpole as the league heads toward a new media rights deal following the 2024-25 regular season. “The In-Season Tournament … is really about the possibility of creating a second championship. The notion of there only being one thing to win each season—we wanted to challenge that,” Evan Wasch, VP of basketball strategy and analytics for the NBA, said in an interview. The brand took inspiration from international soccer and basketball, Wasch said, “but also individual sports like golf, tennis, and racing where there’s more than one championship. We felt that there was untapped opportunity for the NBA.” Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs The tournament will turn regular-season games into a league-wide cup-style competition. Teams will be divided into six groups of five, which will play one another on Tuesdays and Fridays beginning Nov. 3, with eight teams (six group winners and two wild cards) advancing to a single-elimination playoff round. The semifinal (Dec. 7) and championship game (Dec. 9) will take place in Las Vegas. All but the championship game will also count as regular-season games. Fourteen group play games (two games on each tournament night) and all seven knockout round games will be televised nationally. Home teams will wear their City Connect uniforms for all tournament games and all courts will have special branding for the In-Season Tournament. A new creative campaign for the tournament is now streaming across all of the NBA’s social platforms and its app. Created by Translation, “The Heist,” (or HeIST for “In-Season Tournament”) is a Las Vegas crime caper starring Michael Imperioli and seven NBA players—Anthony Davis (Los Angeles Lakers), DeMar DeRozan (Chicago Bulls), Darius Garland (Cleveland Cavaliers), Draymond Green (Golden State Warriors), Kawhi Leonard (Los Angeles Clippers), Julius Randle (New York Knicks) and Trae Young (Atlanta Hawks) all scrambling to acquire the NBA Cup. Also: Watch the NBA’s tipoff campaign The storyline will continue with additional chapters to debut ahead of the knockout and semifinal and championship rounds, according to the league, with Magic Johnson set to join Imperioli. A higher level The NBA has some experience raising the level of competition for its games. Its draft lottery has been effective at discouraging “tanking,” and the recent addition of the Play-In tournament has incentivized teams to fight for playoff seeding through the end of the season. Separately, the league has revamped its player participation policies, with new rules this year intended to ensure that star players won’t sit out nationally televised and In-Season Tournament games. Although there are some skeptics among players, the In-Season Tournament offers financial incentives including $500,000 for each player on the championship team. The success of the tournament, Wasch said, will ultimately be driven by players and teams. “I think the fans are incredibly good at identifying high-level competition, and so if players take the tournament seriously and perform at a high level—a level higher than regular-season games because we’re trying to create a higher level of competition—if the players buy in … we think fans will follow suit and we’d be looking at things like viewership and attendance and social media and expect to see a significant uptick.” Although NBA research indicates fans will be receptive to the In-Season Tournament, Wasch said they would likely need one iteration of the event and its format to truly understand it. “We think the meaning of it, the value of it, will take time, and that’s where we want to focus the marketing campaign—to establish what we’re creating, why it matters, and some of the fun elements that will distinguish it,” Wasch said. Ad Age World’s Largest Advertisers 2023 Ad spending, rankings and analysis for the top 100 advertisers Click here

NBA In-Season Tournament—how the league is marketing its ‘second championship’

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