The NBA is leaving Las Vegas — for the NBA Cup final, at least.
Per ESPN’s Shams Charania, the league will hold next season’s NBA Cup final at Butler’s Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. The game is scheduled for Dec. 11. The report did not address where the semifinal games will be held.
The league had previously held the NBA Cup semifinals and final at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. But the NBA’s contract with the arena was on a year-to-year basis, opening up the possibility of moving the early-season showcase to a different locale.
That prompted speculation that the NBA Cup could move to Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham, North Carolina as the league sought a unique setting in a historic basketball venue.
It turns out that the league decided on another classic college basketball gym on Butler’s campus. The change of venue will come with a significantly reduced capacity to 9,100. But it comes with the promise of a raucous college atmosphere and a compelling product for the Amazon Prime stream of the game.
Holding the game at Butler’s campus instead of at Cameron Indoor or at another college venue like Kansas’ Allen Fieldhouse places the game in an NBA city, which may or may not have been a factor amid concerns that a December game on a college campus may have drawn dampened interest amid exams or winter break.
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