2026 NBA Cup: Format, Schedule, Tiebreakers and Prize Money for the Emirates NBA Cup

The 2026 Emirates NBA Cup is already under way. Group Play began Oct. 30 and runs through Nov. 27, eight teams then advance to single-elimination knockout games, and the Championship is Friday, Dec. 11, per NBA.com. One thing has changed from earlier years: the final is not in Las Vegas. It is at Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. The NBA has not published 2026 per-player prize figures that we could find; the latest verified numbers are from 2025, when the champion’s share was $530,933 per player.

How the groups work

All 30 teams were randomly drawn into groups of five within their conference, using pots based on 2025-26 regular-season records, per the NBA’s groups announcement. Each team plays the other four teams in its group once: four games, two at home and two on the road. The games are played on “Cup Nights,” which are every Friday from Oct. 30 to Nov. 27 plus Tuesday, Nov. 24 and Wednesday, Nov. 25, per the NBA’s FAQ.

By our arithmetic, six groups of five teams, each team playing four games, gives 60 Group Play games, which matches the total reported in the NBA’s schedule announcement.

Key dates for 2026

• Group Play: Oct. 30 to Nov. 27 (60 games).
• Quarterfinals: Friday, Dec. 4 and Saturday, Dec. 5, at the home arena of the higher seed.
• Semifinals: Tuesday, Dec. 8 and/or Wednesday, Dec. 9, also at the higher seed’s home arena.
• Championship: Friday, Dec. 11, at Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, streamed on Prime Video.

Eight teams advance: the winner of each of the six groups, plus one wild card from each conference, which is the second-place team with the best Group Play record in that conference, per NBA.com. The league also changed the semifinals this season: the NBA Board of Governors approved a change moving them from a neutral site to the higher seed’s arena, so the Championship is now the only neutral-site game. The previous three Cups used a Las Vegas Final Four, per NBA.com.

How games count toward the regular season

Every team still plays 82 regular-season games. Group Play games, Quarterfinals and Semifinals all count in the regular-season standings. The Championship does not: it is not a regular-season game, and player and team stats from it are excluded, per NBA.com. That makes 67 Cup games in total, and by our arithmetic 66 of them (60 group, 4 quarterfinal and 2 semifinal games) count toward the regular season.

Teams that miss the knockout rounds still play. The 22 non-qualifying teams each play two regular-season games on the off nights, and the quarterfinal losers play each other in a regular-season game, per the same NBA explainer.

Tiebreakers

If teams are tied within a group, the NBA uses these steps in order:

• Head-to-head record in Group Play.
• Point differential in Group Play.
• Total points scored in Group Play.
• Record in the 2025-26 regular season.
• Random drawing.

Overtime does not count in the point tiebreakers. A team’s differential is zero in a Group Play game that goes to overtime, and overtime points are excluded from the points-scored total. A wild-card tie uses the same steps except head-to-head, and group ties are broken first. Source: NBA Cup 101.

Prize money and what winners get

The champion receives the NBA Cup trophy, and a prize pool is divided among players on teams that reach the knockout rounds, with larger shares for teams that go further, per the NBA’s FAQ. A media panel also picks a tournament MVP and an All-Tournament Team after the Championship.

The NBA’s 2026 pages do not list dollar amounts. The most recent figures we could verify are from 2025, reported by Front Office Sports and repeated by Hoops Rumors: $530,933 per player for the champion, $212,373 for the runner-up, $106,187 for each semifinal loser and $53,093 for each quarterfinal loser. By our arithmetic, those tiers are 100%, 40%, 20% and 10% of the champion’s share, the same ratios as the $500,000, $200,000, $100,000 and $50,000 paid in 2023.

Prize money rises each year with league basketball-related income under the collective bargaining agreement, per Hoops Rumors, which put the most recent growth at about 3.1%. By our arithmetic, the 2025 champion’s share was 3.1% above the $514,971 paid in 2024 ($15,962 more). Front Office Sports reports that two-way players receive half shares.

What we could not verify

We found no NBA-published 2026 per-player prize amounts, so the figures above are 2025’s and may be higher this year. Standings change nightly, so check the NBA’s Cup standings page for current seeding as of Nov. 10, 2026.