NBL to Introduce In-Season Tournament

The NBL Ignite Cup will begin in the 2025-26 season. Picture: NBL.

The NBL has announced the introduction of a brand new in-season tournament, the NBL Ignite Cup, which will be launched in the upcoming 2025-26 season.

The initiative begins on October 8, with all Ignite Cup games to be played on Wednesday nights throughout the season and count towards the regular season standings.

It will eventually culminate in a Final, which will be played outside of the traditional NBL schedule.

The winner of the Ignite Cup Final will pocket $300,000 with the runner-up taking home $100,000. Sixty per cent of that money will go directly to the players, with the remaining 40 per cent going to the clubs in a league-first.

As for how it all works, the scoring system awards three points to the winner of the overall game but teams also have a chance to earn one point for winning each individual quarter.

If two teams score the same amount of points in a quarter, they will receive 0.5 points.

It means that every quarter will matter in the race for the $300,000 prize, which ranks as the biggest payday in NBL history.

Former NBL MVP Derek Rucker said the addition of an in-season tournament was something the league “needed”.

Rucker called it a big win for fans, and a mutually beneficial arrangement for players, while calling it the latest initiative from the league which proves it is at the “forefront of innovation and not being afraid to take risks”.

The NBL in-season tournament closely resembles the NBA's Emirates Cup - which will be contested for the third time next season - but the ability to score tournament points in each quarter as well as each game is a fresh initiative.