NBA hands All-Star Weekend’s in-arena show to Fanatics Studios in a multiyear deal starting in Phoenix

The NBA is bringing in outside producers to help fix the part of All-Star Weekend that fans complain about most. The league on Thursday named Fanatics Studios its creative and event production partner for NBA All-Star in a multiyear deal that starts with the 2027 weekend in Phoenix, Feb. 19-21. The studio will work with the league and NBC Sports on the in-arena events and competitions, help create new event programming, and produce original content in the run-up to the weekend.

Shams Charania first reported the deal, saying the partners would work on “creative approaches for competitions, in-arena entertainment and prominent celebrity and athlete attendance.” Neither side disclosed the financial terms or the exact length of the agreement.

The NBA and Fanatics Studios are entering a multiyear event production partnership starting with All-Star Weekend in Phoenix, collaborating on creative approaches for competitions, in-arena entertainment and prominent celebrity and athlete attendance.

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) November 12, 2026

Who Fanatics Studios is

Fanatics Studios launched in January 2026 as a joint venture between Fanatics, the sports merchandise and collectibles company built by Michael Rubin, and OBB, the entertainment company founded by Michael D. Ratner. Ratner is its CEO and will be the studio’s executive producer on All-Star, working with the league and NBC on the creative plan for the events and the content around them.

The studio is less than a year old, but its slate is already long. It runs the Fanatics Flag Football Classic, produced this year’s ESPYS awards show and a behind-the-scenes series on Fanatics Fest, and is working on a documentary about Olympic gymnast Suni Lee and the official film of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. It also lists partnerships with the NFL, MLB, WWE and the LA28 organizers.

“NBA All-Star is one of those moments where sports and culture collide, and getting to work with the NBA, the players and NBC Sports on what comes next is incredibly exciting,” Ratner said. “There’s already so much about the weekend that fans love. Our job is to build on that, take some big swings and bring new ideas into the mix. This announcement is just the beginning.”

Gregg Winik, the NBA’s president of content and executive producer, said the league wants to build “on what fans love about NBA All-Star while finding new ways to evolve the experience.”

Why the NBA wants help now

The deal comes one year into the league’s new national media era. The 11-year agreements worth about $76 billion moved All-Star to NBC and Peacock, and the first weekend under that deal worked. The 2026 game in Inglewood, played in the new USA vs. World format, averaged 8.8 million viewers across NBC, Peacock and Telemundo, the biggest All-Star audience since 2011 and up 87% from 4.7 million the year before. The league later said more than 46 million people in the U.S. watched some part of the weekend, more than triple the previous year.

“Last season demonstrated the power of bringing NBA All-Star back to NBC Sports, with fans responding in a big way and driving significant growth in viewership for the event,” said Sam Flood, executive producer and president of production at NBC Sports. “Together with the NBA and Fanatics Studios, we’re excited to build on that success.”

The game itself got the fix. Saturday night did not. The 3-point contest and the Slam Dunk Contest have struggled for years to get the league’s biggest names to take part, and the in-arena show around them has often felt like filler between commercial breaks. The Fanatics Studios deal is aimed at that gap: the release says the partners will use the studio’s relationships across sports and entertainment “to bring marquee talent to All-Star events.”

Phoenix was already pushing for changes. Suns owner Mat Ishbia said in October that he was working with Adam Silver on ideas for 2027, including changes to the Saturday events, a bigger push to get star players into the 3-point and dunk contests, and possibly a brand-new competition. The league has not announced any new event or format yet.

What is already set for Phoenix

Event	Date	Where
Ruffles Celebrity Game	Fri., Feb. 19, 5 p.m. MT	Hardwood Central, Phoenix Convention Center
Castrol Rising Stars	Fri., Feb. 19, 7 p.m. MT	Mortgage Matchup Center
NBA HBCU Classic	Sat., Feb. 20, noon MT	Hardwood Central, Phoenix Convention Center
NBA Jam Session	Feb. 19-21	Phoenix Convention Center
NBA All-Star Music Festival	Feb. 19-20	Downtown Phoenix
NBA All-Star Game	Sun., Feb. 21	Mortgage Matchup Center

Jam Session, the league’s fan festival, returns for the first time since 2014 and will fill more than 300,000 square feet of the convention center with more than 40 interactive stops and more than 100 talent appearances. Adult tickets start at $35 and children’s at $20. It will be Phoenix’s fourth All-Star Weekend and its first since 2009. The league has already gave the 2028 event to Miami, so the Fanatics Studios deal will likely run through at least two host cities.

Fanatics keeps growing inside the NBA

For Fanatics, the deal adds another piece to a business that already touches almost every part of the league. The company makes and sells licensed jerseys and gear, and since Oct. 1, 2025, its Topps brand has held the exclusive license for official NBA and players’ union trading cards, ending Panini’s run of more than 15 years. Its summer Fanatics Fest in New York has become a regular stop for NBA stars. Earlier this season, Silver said there was “no rules issue” with LeBron James riding a Fanatics helicopter between New York and Philadelphia.

The All-Star deal moves Fanatics from selling the league’s products to helping shape one of its biggest live events. That makes it part of how the weekend looks to sponsors, to NBC’s audience and to the fans in the building. The first test comes in February, when the league finds out whether new producers and bigger names can make Saturday night in Phoenix feel as competitive as the game did in Inglewood.