NBA 2K League

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NBA 2K League

Most recent season or competition:
Game	NBA 2K
Founded	February 9, 2017; 4 years ago (2017-02-09) New York City, New York, U.S.[1][2]
Inaugural season	2018
Owner(s)	NBA 2K League, LLC. (NBA (50%) Take-Two Interactive (50%)
Commissioner	Brendan Donohue
Motto	This is not a game[citation needed]
No. of teams	23
Countries	United States (21 teams) Canada (1 team) China (1 team)
Headquarters	New York City, New York
Most recent champion(s)	Wizards District Gaming (2nd title) (2021)
Most titles	Wizards District Gaming (2 titles)
TV partner(s)	Twitch (2018–present) YouTube (2019–present) ESPN2 (2020) (select games) ESPN App (2020) TSN (select games) (2020)
Official website	2kleague.nba.com

The NBA 2K League (NBA2KL or simply 2K League) is an esports league joint venture between the National Basketball Association and Take-Two Interactive. The league was announced on February 9, 2017.^[1] On May 4, 2017 it was revealed that 17 of the 30 NBA teams would have their own NBA 2K League team during the inaugural season in 2018.^[2]

On April 18, 2018, the NBA 2K League and Twitch announced a multiyear partnership to live stream all games.^[3] The inaugural season began on May 1, 2018 and on August 25, 2018, Knicks Gaming won the inaugural 2K League championship. For season 2, the rights to live stream the league's games went to YouTube and Twitch the second season began on April 16, 2019, and ended on August 3, with T-Wolves Gaming winning the championship.

The third season was going to be starting on March 31, 2020, but the season was postponed to May 5, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On May 5, 2020, NBA 2K and ESPN agreed to broadcast the games on ESPN2 and the ESPN App for 1 season. The third season actually began on May 5, 2020, with 6 weeks of remote play. On June 9, 2020, remote play got extended from 6 weeks to 11 weeks. On July 18, 2020, the league announced that remote play will once again be extended from 11 weeks to 15 weeks including the ticket, the final in-season tournament.

On August 15, remote play will continue until the end of the season.

In September 2020 the league designed a new draft system with the nba2kleague draft prospect series to be drafted in 2021 nba2kleague draft.^[4]

Season 4 begin on May 19, 2021, with the tip-off tournament (each night beginning at 6 p.m. E.T.) (planned to be played on May, 19-22 but day 2 was postponed making the tournament being played from May 19 and 21-23, 2021) the beginning of the season will be played remotely: With t-wolves gaming being Champions of the 2021 tip-off tournament.

The regular season began the following week (week beginning May 26) with all games played at 7-11 p.m. E.T. each night in a 2-game format during the regular season With each night being named the following:^[5]

• Block Party Wednesday
• Bounce Pass Thursday
• Friday Night Fire (Featuring the game of the week at 10 p.m e.t.)
• Saturday Night Showdown

On July 6, 2021, during the NBA2kleague broadcast the turn tournament was announced from July 14-17, 2021 at 6 p.m. E.T. each night and the event will be held virtually.

In August 2021, the nba2kleague announced that in-person events will return to play during the 2021 nba2kleague playoffs which is held august 26-28 at 5 pm E.T. each night and also the ticket is held on August 19-21 at 5p.m. E.T. each night.^[6][7]

Also in August, the nba2kleague also announced its first all-star game on September 25 at 7p.m. E.T. on Twitch and YouTube.^[8][9]

Qualifying[]

In order to qualify for the league draft, a player needs to be over the age of 18 and own NBA 2K on either PlayStation 4 or Xbox One. Players had to win a number of games in Pro-Am mode and submit an application.^[10] Following that, the players who qualified participated in a combine that ran from February 2–21, 2018.^[11] Only a select number of applicants received invites to the draft.^[12] The NBA 2k league has announced a new tryout process for the upcoming 2021 season.^[13]

Format[]

The inaugural season lasted for 17 weeks, beginning with the tip-off tournament from May 1–5, with the first weekly matchups taking place on May 11–12. There was an additional two tournaments during the season before the playoffs began on August 17, concluding with the NBA 2K League Finals on August 25. All games were live-streamed on Twitch and available to view on demand after the live broadcasts.^[3]

The league used Pro-Am mode for the games, which consisted of 5-on-5 matches where players used archetypes with preset skills instead of their own MyPlayer or NBA players to keep the ratings similar to everyone.^[10][14]

A special build of the newest NBA 2K game is used for the league, with equipment provided by Alienware and Intel.^[15] HyperX is the league's headset sponsor, while Scuf Gaming provides controllers for all matches.^[16] To go along with the league sponsors, each team also has various sponsors and displays the logos of the sponsors on their in-game uniforms. All games are played at the NBA 2K League Studio in New York.^[14]

Weekly match-ups and tournaments[]

The first 2 regular seasons take place over 15 weeks with 12 weeks for weekly matchups and the other three being for tournaments. All teams will play in a minimum of 19 games, including 14 regular-season games and the tournament games. The tournament games will not count towards regular-season records, but will be used as a tiebreaker for the postseason. Weekly matchups will take place on Fridays and Saturdays.

The tip-off tournament contained a $100,000 prize and featured pool play with teams competing in four groups over the course of five days. The top two teams from each group advanced to the single-elimination playoff rounds. For The Turn and The Ticket, seeding was determined by the records of each team over the four weeks since the previous tournament. The tournaments were single elimination and contained a play-in game between the 16th and 17th seeds. The Turn and The Ticket contained prize pools of $150,000, with the winner of The Ticket receiving an automatic playoff berth.

For the third season, the league will begin with 6 weeks of remote play with matchups on Tuesday to Friday from 7–11 pm E.T., with 2 games at 7 pm E.T. and 2 games at 9 pm E.T. which to get a regular-season you have to win a best of 3 series.^[17]

On June 9, 2020, during the nba2kleague broadcast the league announced that remote play will continue through July 17 (week 11 of the regular season) and also announced that the tip-off tournament will be held remotely on June 16–19.

On July 18, 2020, NBA 2k announced that remote play will continue until the remainder of the season including the ticket the final in-season tournament which will take place on August 13-15 the turn will be held remotely from July 22–25, 2020.^[18]

New this season for the ticket, only the teams not making the playoffs will be in the tournament the 10 th seed in the regular season will be in the ticket finals while the remainder of the teams will battle it out for the other spot in the finals^[19]

On August 15, during the nba2kleague broadcast, remote play will continue through The playoffs with the playoffs set for August 20–22 with the finals on August 29th.

The Tréfecta[]

The winner of each tournament will receive a steel championship banner. If a team wins all three, they will achieve the Tréfecta, with all three banners forming "The Banner Chain".^[20]

Salaries and benefits[]

All players signed six-month contracts and will have their relocation and housing costs covered by the league, as well as benefits such as medical insurance and a retirement plan. Food, transportation, and housing will also be covered during the season when teams travel for games.^[21]

Players drafted in the first round will make $35,000, while the rest of the players will make $32,000. There will be four other opportunities throughout the season to win money as $1 million will be split between three tournaments and the league championship. Players are also allowed to sign endorsement deals to earn extra income.^[14][21] In the off-season some players stay sharp and give back to the 2K community by coaching at The GamerU. One player said it's one of my biggest joys helping people grow and get better at the game of 2K because it has done so much for me.

Teams[]

On December 11, 2017, the official logo for the NBA 2K League was revealed,^[22] with the logos for each of the 17 teams being revealed over the course of the following days.^[23][24][25] On August 15, 2018, it was announced that the league would expand to 21 teams in 2019 with the addition of teams from Atlanta, Brooklyn, Los Angeles, and Minnesota.^[26]

References[]

External links[]

• Official website