As it was first speculated by sources last month, the league has been considering serious changes to the All-Star Game format, as it has failed time and time again to attract basketball fans. However, this time around, they are looking into giving the weekend an international twist.
NBA executives Adam Silver and Byron Spruell confirmed this Monday that the league is discussing the possibility of joining the NBA Players Association and broadcast partner NBC to replace the All-Star Game’s current format with an international matchup next year.
“Our All-Star Game will return to NBC next season in the middle of their coverage of the Winter Olympics,” Silver revealed. “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.”
Adam Silver says the changes for the All-Star game "was a miss"
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The league’s president of league operations then told the press that the NBA is hoping to develop “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.”
Spruell then added how the media partners are showing their support: “NBC is very much leaning into it, given their role — we are, as well. Looking to do something new and different yet again, but excited about the possibility.”
The 2026 All-Star Weekend is set to occur in Los Angeles at the Intuit Dome, the new home of the Clippers. The final match will be aired on NBC from a Sunday evening to a Sunday afternoon, as it will directly follow into the broadcast for the winter Olympics prime-time show in Milan.
“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.”
