From the NBA’s perspective, the inaugural season of the In-Season Tournament was a success — ratings were up (not wildly, but up), the level of play was generally higher pleasing the league’s hardcore fans, and the thing created some buzz in the middle of football season. People noticed.
Not that it was ever in question, but NBA Commissioner Adam Silver confirmed that the the IST will be back next year when speaking to reporters in Paris before the NBA’s annual game in France.
“We are pleased with the success after the first season, and no doubt it will be back next year, probably with just a couple of tweaks,” Silver said.
What are these tweaks? Silver said there have been meetings where they “talked about potential changes to the In-Season Tournament, everything from how to break tiebreakers to what the courts look like to maybe even the name of the overall tournament.”
Ultimately, the NBA hopes to be able to sell the IST games as their own package of events to one broadcast partner (with streaming). Put more succinctly, all of the IST games would be exclusive to *insert streaming service here.*
“We’re talking to television partners and maybe figuring out when exactly the best time of year is to do it, maybe it will make sense to make some other modifications to the format,” Silver said. “Those are things we’ll look at.”
Also of note, the NBA had a one-year deal to have the IST Finals in Las Vegas, which could change in future years (especially if Las Vegas is awarded an expansion franchise in a couple of seasons).
Expect the NBA to roll out whatever changes there are this summer, likely during Summer League as they did a year ago (playing to the more hardcore fans that are there and ate the IST up). Just don’t question if the tournament will be back.
