NBA player Steven Adams is warning sports fans to expect a dip across all major professional sports leagues this November as athletes focus on playing the Grand Theft Auto VI video game.
“Look at the NFL, look at all the leagues, and watch them plummet. Just for the month of November, performance is gonna go down,” Adams, a center for the Houston Rockets, told reporters this week.
Adams predicts the slump will last only a short time as athletes dedicate themselves to completing the game’s story mode.
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“It should come back up, though. Most of the boys will get it done. Hopefully they finish the game [in a month],” he said.
Adams also expects other aspects of professional sports to suffer, predicting coaches and staff members will be just as distracted by the new game.
“[Efforts in sports will be] horrendous,” Adams said.
A GTA VI website and PlayStation DualSense controller are displayed on a screen in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland, on July 1, 2026. (NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Before you get uptight over the thought of your favorite athletes and coaches setting aside winning to play a video game, there is important context to consider.
Grand Theft Auto VI is arguably the most anticipated video game of the last few generations. It has been 13 years since the release of Grand Theft Auto V, and Rockstar Games has spent more than a decade developing the sequel.
The game is expected to feature an expansive open world set in the fictional state of Leonida (based on Florida), including a modern-day version of Vice City (based on Miami).
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The story follows Jason and Lucia, two criminals who become entangled in a sprawling conspiracy.
Rockstar North co-head Rob Nelson reportedly said his own playthrough took approximately 80 hours, including optional objectives with narrative consequences. Other estimates have placed the main story at roughly 45 to 50 hours, compared with approximately 32 hours for GTA V.
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That is a lot of storyline to complete.
Attendees walk past a Grand Theft Auto VI promotional display at the Sony booth during the Tokyo Game Show 2026 on Sept. 17, in Chiba, Japan. The show runs through Sept. 21. (Getty Images)
One estimate suggests that 1.5 million Americans could skip work to play the game when it launches. Call them nerds, if you wish. But the scale of the anticipation is difficult to dismiss.
Now, we don’t expect the play of every athlete in America to suffer in November. However, we wouldn’t be surprised if the play of a few starts to suffer because they are busy trying to complete GTA 6.
If Kyler Murray looks less focused, we’ll know why.
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Grand Theft Auto VI is scheduled for release on November 19, 2026, for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. But we caution that the game has been delayed many times before.
