The NBA announced an overhaul to its All-Star Game format beginning next season, the fourth such change in the last seven years. But will that make it worth going to?
An event in flux
The format for the NBA’s All-Star Game was essentially the same from its creation in 1951 until 2017: an East vs. West conference structure. But in 2018, the league moved away from that, opting instead for a captain’s choice format in which two team captains selected from a pool of 22 players. That format existed for six seasons, but in 2024 the NBA decided to revert to its former East vs. West matchup. And then, in 2025, they changed it once again, this time to a four-team tournament.
To say the least, a successful format for the modern age has seemed elusive. The 2025 game had 4.7 million viewers – down from 7.6 million just ten years ago. An event that once featured players like Michael Jordan and Larry Bird determined to beat players like Magic Johnson and Charles Barkley, has turned into an uninteresting and uncompetitive display that fewer and fewer fans want to see.
Another year, another change: how the new format will work
So now, in 2026, we’ll get yet another format change to an America versus everyone else structure – sort of. Three teams of eight (12 from each conference) will be selected by fans, players, and media members. Two teams will be composed of American players, while the third will be manned entirely by foreign-born stars.
In addition to the new roster format, the competition format will change as well. The game will consist of four 12-minute games, with the first three played in a round robin format. Each team will play twice. The fourth will be a head-to-head matchup between the two teams with the best records from the round robin challenge to determine the game’s winner.
Are you following all of that?
So why this format?
The global breakdown of the teams’ compositions likely reflects the league’s desire to replicate the success of the NHL’s inaugural Four Nations Face-Off, which drove huge TV ratings, particularly in North America. The NHL’s format – featuring teams representing the United States, Canada, Sweden, and Finland over the course of a week – was extremely well-received by hockey fans, as the international competition seemingly ramped up the stakes of what used to be a relatively tame contest. The competition was so fierce, in fact, that the U.S.-Canada rivalry featured multiple fights in the opening seconds of one of the two teams’ championship tilts–a delight for hockey fans everywhere.
Although the NBA appears to be after similar results, the ⅔ American, ⅓ international breakdown of teams featured in its All-Star Game doesn’t quite seem to bring the same nationalistic heat. If the two American squads win the round-robin phase, the international team will be left out of the finals. And it was the international aspect that drove the success of the NHL’s format, and was supposedly what the NBA was trying to recreate.
What this means for fans
So … does this new format make you want to go check it out in person? If so, you’d better free up some room on your credit card. The get-in price on StubHub right now is $1500 per ticket for upper deck seats. And if you’re not in Los Angeles (the game is being held at the Intuit Dome), you’ll have to add travel costs to that.
But if you are interested, the next steps would be to grab a refundable hotel reservation and to start looking into flights, which should be fairly priced this far in advance.
