Sports writing, Dec 26 (EFE) .- The NBA seeks to promote a replica of European football championships, such as the King’s Cup in Spain or the FA Cup in England, to add a new tournament to its calendar that would be played during the season regular and that could see the light in 2022-2023 or 2023-2024.
ESPN journalist Adrian Wojnarowski, one of the leading sources of information about the NBA in the United States, said that the idea of the tournament is one of commissioner Adam Silver’s dreams and that the NBA and the NBA Players Association are already discussing the format.
The creation of the tournament would mean cutting the NBA regular season from the current 82 games to 78. Therefore, and so that the players do not oppose the new competition due to a possible loss of emoluments, each of the members of the champion team would initially earn 1 million dollars although this amount could increase.
For the NBA and the teams, the incentive would be “juicy” new television and sponsorship deals.
The participants in the tournament would be the 30 teams that make up the NBA and the final of the tournament would be played before the Christmas holidays.
The tournament format, as presented by Wojnarowski, would have a preliminary phase from which the top eight teams would emerge. From there, the elimination would be direct with the dispute of the quarterfinals, semifinals and finals to a single game.
The main obstacle, according to ESPN, would be the financial interests of the great NBA teams because cutting the regular season would mean the loss of several million dollars of income.
But Silver, who has reportedly been interested in the success of European soccer competitions parallel to national leagues for years, believes the new tournament would be a huge financial and audience success.
(c) EFE Agency