New NBA All-Star Game format does monster viewership numbers, dwarfing 2025

On Sunday evening, the NBA All-Star weekend concluded with the big game itself, which was really four smaller games as part of a round robin tournament between three teams. The younger USA squad ended up winning the whole thing, with Minnesota Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards taking home the All-Star game MVP honors.

The NBA has been tinkering with the All-Star game format for a few years now in hopes to quell fans’ ongoing complaints, and if the ratings from Sunday are any indication, the league might have just found its new solution going forward.

“Regardless of what the audience looked like in the arena at times, the 2026 NBA All-Star Game delivered the largest TV audience since 2011, averaging 8.8M viewers across NBC, Peacock, and Telemundo,” reported ClutchPoints NBA insider Brett Siegel on X, formerly Twitter.

“The 2026 All-Star Game topped last year’s viewership by 87% (4.7M views),” he added.

Coming into this weekend, there was a lot of chatter about the perceived lack of effort from players over the last few All-Star games, with fans wondering whether the new USA vs World format would be enough to motivate the stars into playing somewhat hard.

San Antonio Spurs phenom Victor Wembanyama set the tone early in this one with his competitive play, and the other stars seemed to follow suit, with three out of the four games of the event going right down to the wire.

It remains to be seen whether the NBA will keep this exact format moving forward, as at one point, the older USA roster ended up playing three straight games, at the end of which they appeared to be a bit gassed.

However, for a league that is all about its bottom line, the NBA executives have to be happy with the ratings results from the game.

The NBA regular season is set to resume on Thursday.

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