2026 NBA All-Star Game: Start time, players, how to watch and stream

Give the NBA credit. At least they’re trying.

For the fourth-straight season, the NBA All-Star Game will have a new format when players take the court Sunday night. This year it’s U.S. players versus the world, a debut perfectly timed with the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics.

Like the Olympics, tonight’s All-Star Game will air on NBC, with tipoff at the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles expected around 5 p.m. Philly time. The early start time will give NBC plenty to time to air its prime-time Olympics coverage at 8 p.m.

It’s the first time NBC has aired the All-Star game since 2002, moving over from TNT as part of the league’s 11-year, $76 billion media rights deal that began this season.

Sixers’ star Tyrese Maxey, fresh off being the first Sixers player to compete in the 3-Point Contest since Kyle Korver in 2005, will make his first-ever All-Star Game start Sunday. He’s the first Sixers guard selected to start an All-Star Game since Hall of Famer Allen Iverson in 2010, and it took an unlikely series of events for Maxey to land in Philly in 2020.

One notable omission tonight is seven-time All-Star Joel Embiid. Despite a turnaround season, the 2023 MVP didn’t make the cut for this year’s All-Star roster. But at least he’ll have extra time to rest his sore right knee, which forced him out of two consecutive games heading into All-Star weekend.

“He might not be going to the All-Star Game this weekend, but he’s playing at an All-Star level,” wrote columnist Marcus Hayes.

Sixers rookie phenom VJ Edgecombe also isn’t playing tonight, but put on a show during the league’s Rising Stars competition Friday night. Edgecombe. who was named the evening’s MVP, won both tournament games for Vince Carter’s team, at one point racking up 10 straight points and sinking a game winner in the two-game mini tournament.

“I just wanted to go out there and show everyone that I can hoop — regardless of stage,” Edgecombe said.

Here’s everything you need to know to watch or stream this year’s NBA All-Star game:

The 2026 NBA All-Star Game is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, and will air live on NBC from the Intuit Dome, home of the Los Angeles Clippers.

The All-Star Game will stream live on Peacock, NBC’s subscription streaming platform. It can also be streamed on all the digital services offering NBC, including Hulu With Live TV, DirecTV Stream, Sling TV, or YouTube TV.

In and around Philadelphia, you can also stream NBC10 for free with a digital antenna, though signal strength will vary by your location.

Calling his first-ever All-Star Game is 29-year-old Noah Eagle, already one of NBC’s top announcers and the son of veteran play-by-play announcer Ian Eagle. He’ll be joined on the broadcast by former NBA stars turned broadcasters Carmelo Anthony and Reggie Miller.

Zora Stephenson and Ashley ShahAhmadi will report courtside.

This year’s All-Star Game would more accurately be described as an All-Star tournament.

Three different squads — USA Stars, USA Stripes, and World — will face off in a round robin series. Each team will play at least two 12-minute games, and the best two will face off in a finale at 7:10 p.m.

“One of the things that didn’t happen last year, there was not enough basketball in the All-Star Weekend because of the format,” Sam Flood, NBC’s Sports’ president of production, said in a conference call earlier this week. “This game and this All-Star Sunday will have a full 48 minutes. If we’re lucky, we might get some overtime as well, so fun times await.”

Here’s the full schedule. If all three teams end up tied 1-1, the tiebreaker will be decided by point differential:

Despite lackluster effort and nonexistent defense, million of fans tune in each year to watch the NBA’s top stars face off. But the audience has steadily declined in recent years, much like everything else on TV.

Last year’s All-Star game, which aired on TNT, averaged 4.72 million viewers. That’s down from 7.614 million viewers from a decade ago, mirroring a trend across all television as more people turn to streaming services.

Expect a bump in the ratings this year, thanks to the return to broadcast television. Over 13 million viewers tuned in the last time the All-Star game air on NBC, way back in 2002 in Philadelphia. Doubtful we’ll hit that mark this time around, but anything north of 6 million viewers would be welcome news for the league.

The decline also isn’t exclusive to the NBA. All-Star games across different leagues have lost their allure as well-paid players don’t have much incentive to play hard and cross-conference play is the norm.

Even the all-powerful NFL has struggled to bring fans back to the Pro Bowl, which a decade ago regularly averaged over 10 million viewers. 2026’s version of the reimagined flag football contest drew just 2 million fans on ESPN, second-lowest in the game’s history behind 2021’s tape-delayed COVID game (1.9 million).

USA Stars

USA Stripes

Despite two consecutive losses against the Portland Trail Blazers and New York Knicks, the Sixers entered the All-Star break in sixth-place in the Eastern Conference and solidly in a playoff spot one season removed from missing the postseason entirely.

Now the key is holding onto that spot with 28 games remaining, Embiid still dealing with a sore knee, and the front office appearing to punt on improving the team at the trade deadline.