The National Basketball Association has achieved success in addition with the debut of the In-Season Tournament and the Play-In Tournament. The league’s total attendance was 22, 538, 518 and as compared to last season, the increase was noted by addition of 300,000 spectators, as per Front Office Sports.
As per FOS, Jonathan Tillman, the executive vice president of the league of team marketing and business operations shared, “Usually, you see a very strong start of the schedule and then maybe you’ll see a little bit of a lull in the November and December months, before picking back up going into the finish.”
The NBA drew a record 22.5 million fans in attendance during the regular season.
The new In-Season Tournament and the evolution of the Play-In Tournament helped spur the jump.
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— Front Office Sports (@FOS) April 17, 2024
He further shared, “We’re very happy with the changes that have been made over the last couple of years. And at this point, it’s a matter of just monitoring those successes, further evaluating, and then deciding from there what tweaks in the margin could be made for next season.”
The league’s birth of the In-Season Tournament was a successful step towards gaining more popularity and attention. The tournament was played between November and December and saw participation from all thirty teams. The Trophy was given to the winning team with each player receiving $500,000.
The championship game attracted 4.58 million viewers and became one of the most-watched games as well. The In-Season Tournament has been renamed as Emirates NBA Cup after an NBA multi-year deal with Emirates air line organization.
