On the heels of the most-watched non-Olympic hockey game ever, which was the championship game of a mini-international tournament the NHL held in lieu of its annual All-Star Game, the NBA said it is looking into doing something similar next year in Los Angeles.
On Monday in New York, NBA commissioner Adam Silver and president of league operations Byron Spruell said discussions were being held with new broadcast partner NBC for an “international competition” as the league’s All-Star Game, which is set for Feb. 15, 2026, at the LA Clippers’ Intuit Dome.
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Responding to a question by The Athletic at the annual Associated Press Sports Editors commissioners meeting in New York about the future of the NBA All-Star Game, given the success of the NHL’s 4 Nations Face-Off in February, Spruell said the league was considering “formats that lean into this idea of international play, to some extent leaning a little bit on this idea of U.S. versus rest of the world, and then also going all the way from the mini-tournaments we experimented with in San Francisco, maybe that has some application, more on a nations or regions based.”
“NBC is very much leaning into it, given their role — we are, as well,” Spruell continued. “Looking to do something new and different yet again, but excited about the possibility.”
Silver then added: “It’s not lost on us … we’ll be in L.A., the home of the ’28 Summer Olympics, and we’ll be competing in the arena at Intuit, where the basketball competition will take place in the 2028 Olympics. So I think all of those factors when they come together, it presents an enormous opportunity for us to do something with an international competition instead of the traditional All-Star formats that we’ve used.”
Roughly 25 percent of current NBA players were born outside of the U.S., and several of them are among the very best in the league. It wouldn’t be too far-fetched to put together rosters of two teams — U.S. versus a team of players born elsewhere, almost like a Ryder Cup in golf, which features Americans against European players — or even more teams for a tournament.
For instance, the top three MVP candidates for this season are Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, of Canada; Nikola Jokić, of Serbia; and Giannis Antetokounmpo, of Greece. Luka Dončić, a perennial All-Star and MVP candidate, is from Slovenia, and Joel Embiid, a former league MVP, was born in Cameroon (yes, he played for the U.S. at the Olympics last summer). Victor Wembanyama of France made his first All-Star game this season, as did the Rockets’ Alperen Şengün of Turkey. Pascal Siakam of Cameroon was also an All-Star.
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For seven seasons running, the league’s Most Valuable Player has come from outside the U.S. A Frenchman has gone No. 1 overall in the draft for the last two years, and seven times since 2013 the top player selected was not born in the U.S. Going back to 2010, at least 10 international players have been selected in every draft.
The world’s largest pro basketball league is not afraid to tinker with its All-Star Game, either. In February, the NBA switched from a traditional, East vs. West game to a four-team tournament with three squads of All-Stars and a fourth of “rising stars,” or first and second-year players. That tournament drew poor ratings — it was the second-lowest-rated NBA All-Star Game, and viewership was down 13 percent from the 2024 game — and was criticized for the in-game gimmicks and extended stoppages. Earlier this year, Silver called the tournament a “miss.”
Though Silver and Spruell did not draw the comparison between the NBA’s experiment and the NHL’s success with the 4 Nations Face-Off, it’s easy to see the appeal for the NBA. The NHL scrapped its All-Star Game for a tournament featuring stars from the U.S., Canada, Sweden, and Finland over a nine-day period.
The championship game between the U.S. and Canada (won in overtime by the Canadians) drew an astonishing 9.3 million viewers on ESPN and 7.3 million on Sportsnet in Canada.
The earlier round game between the United States and Canada — a 3-1 win over Canada on a rock ’em sock ’em Saturday night in Montreal — averaged 4.4 million viewers on ABC and peaked with 5.2 million viewers.
Also, to Silver’s point, the next Olympic tournament will be in L.A., played at the same arena where next year’s all-star game will take place. There is a general appetite for international basketball that is only growing, after arguably the most star-studded international tournament ever took place last summer at the Paris Olympics. The Americans won their fifth consecutive gold medal but nearly lost in the semifinals to Jokić and Serbia, as well as to Wembanyama and France in the finals.
Additionally, Silver is seeking to start an NBA European league, likely later in 2026.
This story will be updated.
