Report: NBA Head Coaches Will Earn $500K for Winning Inaugural In-Season Tournament

The head coach who wins the first-ever NBA in-season tournament this year will reportedly be compensated handsomely by the league.

According to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski, the winning head coach will receive $500,000, which is the same amount that players on the winning team will earn.

Wojnarowski added that assistant coaches will share a prize pool that is 75 percent of what the winning head coach earns, while the runner-up head coach will earn $200,000, head coaches advancing to the semifinals will receive $100,000 and head coaches advancing to the quarterfinals will receive $50,000.

The prize pool is meant to incentivize coaches to attempt to go on a deep run and win the tournament rather than treating them like normal games and potentially sitting key players.

According to Wojnarowski, the NBA came up with the tournament pay scale after meeting with coaching leadership in September, while the payment to players was collectively bargained by the National Basketball Players Association.

The NBA is the first of the four major North American professional sports leagues to adopt an in-season tournament reminiscent of the ones major soccer leagues, particularly those in Europe, have been putting on for decades.

Tournament group play is set to begin Friday and will continue through Nov. 28. Each group includes five teams and all of them will play each other once.

At the conclusion of the group stage, the quarterfinals will be held on Dec. 4 and 5, followed by the semifinals on Dec. 7 and the championship game on Dec. 9.

Both the semifinals and finals will take place at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.