Don’t expect to see your favorite basketball teams face off on Election Day.
As Americans head to the polls to cast their ballots in the 2024 U.S. presidential election—casting their votes for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz, Republican nominee Donald Trump and JD Vance or a third party candidate—the NBA will not hold any games Nov. 5, per the league’s official 2024-2025 regular season schedule.
The first time the league made such a move was in 2022, in an effort to boost voter turnout in that year’s midterm elections.
“It’s unusual,” the Executive Director of the National Basketball Social Justice Coalition James Cadogan told NBC News at the time. “We don’t usually change the schedule for an external event, but voting and Election Day are obviously unique and incredibly important to our democracy.”
He added, “That’s part of the value proposition that we want to make sure people understand, that voting is unlike anything else.”