The crossroads of basketball history and modern innovation are headed to the Circle City this winter.
The NBA officially announced that the Emirates NBA Cup 2026 Championship will be held at Hinkle Fieldhouse, Butler University’s home arena. The high-stakes, winner-take-all tournament final is scheduled for Dec. 11 during the 2026-27 regular season and will stream exclusively on Amazon Prime Video.
According to league officials, the selection of the 9,100-seat Indianapolis venue reflects a multiyear vision to stage the tournament’s final match on distinctive, historic courts that honor the roots of the game while engaging a global broadcast audience.
“Hinkle Fieldhouse offers a special setting to capture the excitement and drama of the Emirates NBA Cup Championship,” NBA Head of Global Events Kelly Flatow said. “Playing the Championship in an iconic basketball environment like this will further establish it as a signature moment on the NBA calendar.”
For nearly a century, Hinkle Fieldhouse has stood among the most culturally recognizable structures in American sports history. The arena maintains deep ties to the professional ranks, having served as the home court for local franchises during the NBA’s foundational years and welcoming the WNBA’s Indiana Fever for a slate of home games during their 2022 campaign.
The facility also anchors some of the state’s most profound basketball lore. Hinkle hosted the 1954 Indiana high school state championship game that inspired the 1986 film “Hoosiers,” and serving as the actual filming location for the movie’s climactic scenes. More significantly, it was on this very hardwood in 1955 that future NBA legend Oscar Robertson led Indianapolis’s own Crispus Attucks High School to a historic state title, establishing the Tigers as the nation’s first all-Black basketball state champion.
The mid-December showcase will feature expanded, interactive basketball programming across the university’s campus, establishing a festive fan ecosystem in the days leading up to tip-off.
The Emirates NBA Cup originally debuted in 2023, with the upcoming December final set to crown the tournament’s fourth champion in league history. The Los Angeles Lakers captured the inaugural title, followed by victories from the Milwaukee Bucks in 2024 and the New York Knicks in 2025.
Local and national fans can immediately register their interest for general public ticket sales, which are scheduled to open this fall via NBAEvents.com.
Special ticket packages that include premium arena access, VIP hospitality, and campus experiences are currently available for purchase through the league’s primary event gateway at nbaexperiences.com.
Contact multimedia & senior sports reporter Noral Parham at 317-762-7846. Follow him on X @3Noral. For more news, visit indianapolisrecorder.com.
Noral Parham is the multi-media reporter for the Indianapolis Recorder, one of the oldest Black publications in the country. Prior to joining the Recorder, Parham served as the community advocate of the MLK Center in Indianapolis and senior copywriter for an e-commerce and marketing firm in Denver.
