NBA 2K23 the Cheapest Way to Get NBA League Pass?

The NBA 2K23 cover athlete announcements have been coming out over the last couple days, and most are excited about MJ and the Jordan Challenge coming back for another go. However, I’m an NBA junkie first and foremost, and so the NBA 2K23 Championship Edition being listed as having a full year of NBA League Pass with it has me curious.

NBA 2K23 With NBA League Pass

We should get the full details on July 7 in terms of the full list of what comes with these versions of the game and the prices of these editions, but let’s talk about what we know right now. We know the Championship Edition comes with a full year of NBA League Pass. At first, I assumed this would be the version of League Pass that is a Team Pass. Basically for $120 USD, you get to see all games from a single team that you select. However, by the NBA’s own marketing jargon (and 2K’s details related to the asterisk next to League Pass in their own press release about the Championship Edition), this seems to be a “full” version of League Pass. This could be either the “normal” $199 League Pass, or the $249.99 Premium League Pass, or the $279.99 Premium League Pass + NBA TV.

Let’s assume it’s just the “normal” League Pass for $199, and so basically the normal retail price for something like this should be at least $260 here in the US since you also get a copy of NBA 2K23. I have a hard time believing the NBA 2K23 Championship Edition is going to cost $250, but even at that price, it would technically be a fair deal (and I would probably buy it).

If it’s going to cost $200 or $150, then basically what 2K and the NBA have done here is given out a “free” version of NBA 2K23 with a cheaper version of NBA League Pass on top of it. It seems like a given that there will be a deal here of some sort, with the downside being that you have to pre-order NBA 2K23 to snag the reward. But even if you have zero interest in NBA 2K23, this still may be one of the cheapest ways to snag NBA League Pass for the 2022-23 NBA season.

That said, there are a couple caveats here. For one, auto-renew will be turned on by default when you activate this subscription, so you will need to remember that and not get charged for a new season of NBA League Pass for the 2023-24 season (if you somehow forget about it). In addition, this is a “limited” run version of the game, so it’s unclear how many copies of this game will even be sold. It’s not just about whether you get a physical version or not either, this is simply about the number of codes 2K procured from the NBA for League Pass.

We’ll check back tomorrow to see how this all shakes out in terms of pricing and if there are any other hidden strings attached, but this seems like it could be a nice deal for hoop heads as of now. The NHL sort of set things in motion by partnering with ESPN this past season to more or less provide a cheap version of NHL Center Ice, so it will be interesting to see if this is a sign of things to come for the NBA in terms of trying to get more people invested in seeing more games from around the NBA at a cheaper price. It seems like the more eyeballs the better if the ad dollars end up outweighing the subscription fees (and especially so if they can just sell the rights to the package more or less like the NHL did with ESPN).