NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and president of league operations Byron Spruell both said that discussions are being held that would see the 2026 NBA All-Star Game take on an “international competition” format, according to The Athletic’s Joe Vardon.
“Our All-Star Game will return to NBC next season in the middle of their coverage of the Winter Olympics,” Silver told The Athletic. “Given the strong interest we’ve seen in international basketball competitions, most recently in last summer’s Olympics in Paris, we’re discussing concepts with the players’ association that focus on NBA players representing their countries or regions instead of the more traditional formats that we’ve used in the past.”
This comes about a month after the league announced that it would not be retaining the mini-tournament format that it used for the 2025 NBA All-Star Game.
It also appears that the 2026 NBA All-Star Game at Intuit Dome will be played in the afternoon rather than its usual evening slot so as not to conflict with Winter Olympics coverage.
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“It was well-intentioned,” Silver said in March. “But I think the long stoppage in play in that final game didn’t work for anyone.”
Byron Spruell added that the new “formats that lean into this idea of international play, to some extent leaning a little bit on this idea of United States 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.”
At the start of the 2024-25 season, there were 125 internationally born players in the NBA, which equates to almost a quarter of all the league’s players. Meanwhile, the 2017-18 season marked the last time an American-born NBAer won the MVP award.
“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.”
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The 2025 NBA All-Star Game topped out at 4.72 million viewers, a 12.6% decline from 2024, making it the second least-watched All-Star Game of all time. Only the 2023 All-Star Game had fewer viewers (4.6 million).
“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,” Silver explained. “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.”
The 2026 NBA All-Star Game will take place on February 15th, 2026.
