The NBA is getting ready to descend upon Las Vegas for its annual Summer League showcase at a time when the league’s relationship with the city has never been stronger. 

Between the success of the first in-season tournament that concluded in Sin City and the widespread interest in a potential Vegas expansion team, the long-running Summer League is just one piece of the puzzle drawing the league to Nevada—but not an unimportant one.

Last year, 136,623 fans attended Summer League games over 11 days at Thomas & Mack Center and Cox Pavilion on the campus of UNLV. That’s the second-most ever for the event, just behind a total crowd of nearly 140,000 in 2018. The NBA will look to potentially break that record this year as all 30 teams are once again set to participate, following smaller summer leagues in Sacramento, San Francisco, and Salt Lake City.

A year ago, the hype in Las Vegas centered on 2023 No. 1 pick Victor Wembanyama as he made his Spurs debut, but this year’s most intriguing player was taken at the bottom of the second round. Lakers rookie Bronny James (above) has already been drawing Summer League eyeballs in California, as the potential of him playing in the NBA with his father became reality after LeBron James re-signed with Los Angeles.

Trophy Season

It was at the beginning of Summer League play in Las Vegas last year when The Association formally announced plans for the inaugural NBA In-Season Tournament, which included an NCAA Final Four weekend event along the Strip at T-Mobile Arena in December. Since the Lakers won the first edition, the tournament has been renamed the Emirates NBA Cup, and commissioner Adam Silver said that format tweaks could be coming to future iterations.

Details of the upcoming season’s NBA Cup have yet to be released, including whether Las Vegas will return as the Final Four host or another city will swoop in.

Hometown Hero?

When the NBA finally announces its new media-rights deals, which are projected to be worth $76 billion, the next focus for the league will be expansion. Silver has said on multiple occasions that the NBA will explore adding two new franchises to bring the league to 32 teams.

Las Vegas is widely seen as a front-runner to land an expansion club, along with Seattle, and potentially a dark horse in Mexico City. James has made no secret about his desire to be part of a potential Vegas ownership group after he retires, but so have other superstars like Shaquille O’Neal. 

Meanwhile, the Oak View Group, which developed Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, has considered a $10 billion project in Vegas that would include an NBA arena where an expansion team could have its own home away from T-Mobile Arena, where the NHL’s Golden Knights play.

The cable channel that allegedly nobody can find every year when March Madness arrives is now elevating as a key element of TNT Sports’ future sports programming plans. 

The Warner Bros. Discovery unit—already in the midst of significant retooling of its sports portfolio and facing a potential loss of NBA media rights—is expanding its emphasis on truTV. After introducing a TNT Sports programming block on the channel earlier this year, WBD will make that presence “even more pronounced and consistent,” starting in October.

TNT Sports graphics and branding will be included in truTV’s prime-time programming, and the channel will also increasingly air sports content there—including existing properties in the portfolio such as MLB and the NHL, and also newly acquired ones like NASCAR, the French Open in tennis, and college properties that include the Mountain West and Big East conferences and sublicensing of the College Football Playoff. All told, TNT Sports projects nearly 1,000 hours of total sports programming on truTV this year, and much more next year.

It’s a marked shift from the heated viewer outcries each spring, when the arrival of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament brings widespread confusion from fans that in many instances haven’t otherwise watched the channel.  

“We aspire for TNT Sports on truTV to be a go-to destination for a dynamic range of fans seeking not only more premium sports, but also alternate ways to experience and enjoy them,” said Craig Barry, TNT Sports executive vice president and chief content officer, in a statement. 

Broader Strategy

The increased emphasis on truTV by WBD is not surprising given macro-level changes happening across the media industry. Increasingly, live sports is a dominant entity on television, claiming nearly all of the industry’s largest audiences last year and setting a new U.S. viewership record in February with Super Bowl LVIII. That trend is only accelerating, particularly as audiences for entertainment programming continue to migrate to streaming. 

As WBD also acquires more sports rights, it needs an additional place to air that content. Unlike key competitors such as ESPN and its corporate parent Disney, NBCUniversal, Fox, and CBS Sports and its parent Paramount, WBD doesn’t have a broadcast channel to aid in that expansion.