The NBA is channeling Ocean’s 11 as it seeks to draw attention and eyeballs for its inaugural in-season tournament this year, culminating in an “NBA Cup” championship in Las Vegas Dec. 9.
In conjunction with the kick off of the season this week, the league is launching a marketing effort for the tournament featuring a slew of NBA stars, as well as Sopranos and White Lotus actor Michael Imperioli.
In the first spot (two more “chapters” will follow as the season goes on, including one in which Magic Johnson joins Imperioli at a poker table), Imperioli serves as the narrator as NBA stars like Anthony Davis, Trae Young, Draymond Green and Kawhi Leonard hatch a plan to steal the NBA Cup inside a Las Vegas casino.
“It was a very easy idea to explain, where people internally quickly got it,” says NBA chief marketing officer Tammy Henault. “It’s Ocean’s 11 meets the NBA, that’s how we’re going to tell this story, and people instantly picked it up and understood it.”
“We said, why don’t we really use Vegas as the backdrop right?” Henault adds. “It’s a great location, we can really lean into that from a storyline perspective.”
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The NBA’s in-season tournament takes a cue from European soccer leagues, some of which also do in-season tourneys. The hope is to create a must-see “event” early on in the season, which will hopefully carry through the remainder of the season into the playoffs come spring.
But first, the league needs to introduce the concept to its fans.
“[The league wanted to] really explain the tournament, get people familiar with it,” Henault says. “Then we wanted to ensure that we start to develop an excitement and buy in… and also of course, player engagement and really showcasing how the players are just as excited for this new format.”
The spot sees Imperioli as the “The Mastermind” of the heist, explaining what the team needs to secure the NBA Cup. Stars include Anthony Davis (“The Heavy”), Trae Young (“The Ice Man”) and Kawhi Leonard (“The Inside Man”), all sneaking through the casino to get their piece of the action.
“This idea of a heist and showcasing some of our biggest stars coveting the cup and trying to get the cup, and making the cup a central character in the story and the narrative just came through a brainstorming session, at the end of the day,” Henault says.
And Imperioli serves as narrator and lead instigator, planning the heist from a card table.
“Michael was certainly on the list in terms of thinking about the persona that we needed for this narrator, someone that could fit in this heist backdrop,” Henault says, adding that he had the “perfect voice and a perfect personality” for the campaign.