Now that the NBA All-Star Game, with its revised mini-tournament format, is more than a month in the past, commissioner Adam Silver has had a chance to reflect on the experience.
The overall takeaway: the product was “a miss.”
Speaking Thursday at the conclusion of the NBA’s Board of Governor’s meetings, Silver fielded several questions about the state of the league, television ratings, expansion and recent sales of franchises. And the All-Star Game, which has drawn criticism recently for a lack of competitive and compelling play, remains an issue.
“I thought we made almost an immeasurable amount of progress — sitting there, I thought this was a little better — but it was a miss,” Silver told reporters Thursday. “We’re not there in terms of creating an All-Star experience that we can be proud of and that our players can be proud of.”
Silver continued by acknowledging the switch in broadcast partner for next year’s All-Star Game, with NBC taking the reins from TNT, which had aired the event for 23 consecutive years. The 2026 All-Star Game, though, will be unique in that NBC will be airing the event while also juggling its coverage of the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina.
Despite the busy schedule, Silver said NBC is “very enthusiastic about the All-Star Game as a marquee property.”
Next year’s All-Star Game will be hosted by the Los Angeles Clippers at the newly opened Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California. Silver said that the NBA, based on feedback to this most recent version of the event, is starting fresh in considering ways to improve the All-Star Game experience.
Silver did say that, with the environment of the Olympics and the NHL’s success with its 4 Nations Face-Off tournament held in February, the NBA could consider introducing some form of international competition to the All-Star weekend.
“People floated USA (versus) World, I’m not sure that makes sense with the level of development, if that’s fair to lump all the other countries together these days,” Silver said. “Maybe we can single out if there are some international teams that can compete.”
The NBA introduced a new format with a mini-tournament with four teams competing in three games. The NBA divided the 24 selected All-Stars into three teams of eight players. TNT analysts Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith each drafted their teams. The fourth team was the winning squad from the Rising Stars event Friday night.
“I think at the height of this, we sell competition,” Silver said. “I think our players recognize they’re not putting their best foot forward when there’s a sense that they’re not all-in playing an All-Star Game. And I take responsibility, too, because we’re both a sport and an entertainment brand and we recalibrated for this year’s All-Star Game in San Francisco around more of an entertainment product and don’t think it worked.”
Silver added that the recalibration was “well-intentioned” but that “the breaks were too long” and that the NBA is “a bit back to the drawing board.”
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