Could NBA Cup title game move to ‘storied’ Allen Fieldhouse next December?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- NBA considers moving Cup final to storied college arenas such as Allen Fieldhouse.
- Commissioner Silver cites higher early-season ratings and stronger local interest.
- League weighs crowd energy and ticket demand versus Las Vegas capacity benefits.
The NBA is considering holding the championship game of its mid-season “NBA Cup” in “storied college arenas,” rather than Las Vegas, Nevada, league commissioner Adam Silver said Tuesday during an interview on the “NBA on Prime” set.
The 2025 NBA Cup title game, a 124-113 New York Knicks victory over San Antonio, was played Tuesday night in Las Vegas, where the tourney finals have been contested the past three seasons.
Of course, when one discusses “storied” college arenas, KU’s Allen Fieldhouse — as well as Kentucky’s Rupp Arena, Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium, Butler’s Hinkle Fieldhouse and Penn’s Palestra — generally come to mind.
“Love it,” KU coach Bill Self said when asked by The Star via text for his initial take on the NBA possibly playing a game or two in Allen Fieldhouse.
Here are some specifics on the matter, as explained by Silver:
“We’re going to go back to home markets for the (NBA Cup) semifinal games next year (instead of in Vegas) because I think that teams — the reason we didn’t do that the first time out — were worried they wouldn’t be able to sell the tickets on short notice,” Silver said on “NBA on Prime,” as reported by the Sports Business Journal.
“Now that they’re seeing that their fans care about the Cup, they want the benefit of a home crowd and the energy that’s there. So, I like that idea.”
As far as the Cup title game, Silver said: “We’re talking with Amazon Prime (Video) about whether it makes sense to maybe go to some unique locations for the final game. They’ve suggested, for example, some storied college arenas. So, we’re just looking at other ways we could do this.”
Silver stressed on the “NBA on Prime” set — which is located in Las Vegas — that the NBA “has loved our experience” in Las Vegas.
The title game drew a sellout crowd of 18,609 on Tuesday inside the city’s T-Mobile Arena.
One NBA executive told sportsbusinessjournal.com that moving to a college arena, “wouldn’t be about the size of the building; it would be about the place going nuts.”
Cameron Indoor Stadium, on the campus of Silver’s alma mater, Duke, seats 9,314 fans. Allen Fieldhouse seats 15,300 and Rupp Arena 20,500.
“Amazon would eat it up. It could essentially mirror MLB’s ‘Field of Dreams’ game,” the unnamed executive told sportsbusinessjournal.com.
NBA officials mulling moving the finals to college arenas obviously are assuming that college fans would care enough to purchase tickets — tickets that would figure to be expensive, of course.
Silver said the league has “had the three highest-attended Novembers in the history of this league” since the Cup began. Sportsbusinessjournal.com indicated ratings are up 25% in November/December compared to when there was no in-season tournament.
“The fans have responded,” Silver said.
KU filled the fieldhouse for an exhibition game between Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls and the Seattle SuperSonics on Oct. 11, 1997. Also, the Utah Jazz played the Philadelphia 76ers in an exhibition in Allen on Oct. 18, 2001. The attendance for that game was listed at 10,100.
“I remember everything about that year and the mystique around Michael Jordan,” former KU center Eric Chenowith told the Lawrence Journal-World in 2020, discussing the Bulls-Sonics contest. “People talk about the Beatles coming to town or whatever, but I’ll never forget the fieldhouse that night. It was packed two hours before the game.”
“This was Jordan in his heyday. It was peak Jordan,” former KU guard Ryan Robertson told the Lawrence newspaper. “And so to be a basketball player and have Michael Jordan in the fieldhouse was a very big deal.”
The Jazz-Sixers exhibition game, which featured the return of former KU coach Larry Brown of the Sixers and center Greg Ostertag of the Jazz, failed to sell out, ostensibly because stars Allen Iverson (Philly) and Karl Malone (Utah) were not available for the contest. They did not even make the trip to Lawrence for the game.
Some analysts have already been weighing in on which college should play host to the fourth NBA Cup final next December if the NBA indeed makes the move from Vegas.
CBSsports.com’s Gary Parrish has a list of Allen Fieldhouse, Cameron Indoor, Palestra, Hinkle and The Pit (New Mexico). CBSsports.com’s Matt Norlander lists Rupp, Allen, Hinkle, Indiana’s Assembly Hall and North Carolina’s Dean E. Smith Center.
“I love the idea of going to a state that does not have an NBA franchise,” Norlander said. “Because of the unique nature of the event you might be able to get people who are more willing to come that never have.”
Parrish said: “Take two of the best professional basketball teams in the world, some of the best basketball players on the planet and put them at Cameron Indoor. I know it has a capacity of only 9,314. But what does that mean? We sell 9,000 fewer tickets for one game? It’s fine.”
Silver has not said that the NBA Cup will definitely depart Las Vegas. The Las Vegas Sun made a case for the event staying put, pointing out that Las Vegas is a city that annually plays host to NBA summer-league games.
“From an optimistic point of view, Silver also flirted with the idea of moving the Cup after last year though with fewer specifics of actual ideas,” wrote Case Keefer of the Las Vegas Sun. “Milwaukee coach Doc Rivers scoffed at the thought after winning the tournament, however, and said a change would be unnecessary.”
Keefer added after watching Tuesday’s title game: “This was not the lifeless neutral-venue scene that some have accused T-Mobile Arena of being for the NBA Cup. In fairness, those might be fair critiques for a handful, if not majority, of the semifinal games over the last three years. But it’s not Las Vegas’ fault.
“Fan bases have only three days to plan a trip between the opening eight-team round of the knockout stage of the in-season tournament on Tuesday to Saturday’s final four.
“The league got lucky last year,” Keefer continued, “when the Atlanta Hawks made a surprise run to the semifinals on the same weekend the Falcons were scheduled to play the Raiders at Allegiant Stadium. Atlanta fans were already in town and gave the Eastern Conference semifinal some juice despite its team losing to Milwaukee.
“The Lakers will always be a draw in Las Vegas, so the first year benefited from their inclusion and the swarm of both local fans and those willing to jump on the I-15 North. But there was no such luck this year with the Spurs upsetting the Lakers in the quarterfinals. Saturday’s semifinals drew poor attendance and may have been the final taste of sour for the league to take the Cup elsewhere. The championship game should have Silver and his crew reconsidering though.”
