By Ray Ampoloquio · Sep 23, 2026 Updated by Matt Gibbs · Sep 23, 2026 Steven Adams joked that Grand Theft Auto VI 's November 19 launch will cost NBA and NFL players sleep and dent their performance this season.

A professional NBA star has added athletes to the long list of people bracing for Grand Theft Auto VI , and maybe their coaches should do so too. Houston Rockets center Steven Adams joked this week that the game's November launch could trigger a league-wide dip in performance, because players across the NBA and the NFL will lose sleep over their adventures in Vice City , and won't be at the top of their (real-life) game.

Adams was half-joking, but we'd like to stress the "half" part. His point was that GTA 6 drops right in the middle of both the NBA and NFL seasons, with a game this addictive set to eat into a lot of athletes' sleep. He is not the first person to admit their November is already spoken for - he is just the first one whose day job is professional sports.

Adams is describing something we have tracked for months . People are rearranging their lives around this launch. A small business is closing for the week so its staff can play, one person gifted their partner a chore-free launch week and a 78-year-old grandmother bought a console just to play it.

South Park even built a running gag out of everyone pinning their hopes on November. Adams pointing at his own league is the sports version of the same thing.

GTA 6 is already reshaping people's November

The growing list of people rearranging their lives around GTA 6's launch.

It is not just fans who are feeling the gravitational pull of the next Grand Theft Auto . Rival studios have tailored release schedules dodging November entirely so they do not have to compete with GTA 6 for attention, a pull Twitch's CEO called an "attention vortex" . When entire game publishers reschedule around a launch , an NBA center warning that his sport will feel it too does not sound so far-fetched.

Adams will presumably still suit up on game nights. He's an NBA iron man who, before a string of injuries from 2023-2026, barely missed games from his rookie season in 2013-2014 to 2018-2019. He's expected to suit up for the NBA regular season come October after undergoing a season-ending ankle ligament surgery back in January 2026.

With that said, the joke works because what's happening is very real. GTA 6 arrives on November 19 into a world that has spent the past few months or even years clearing its calendar for it. Apparently that now includes locker rooms of lumbering giants who are apparently as huge fans of GTA as the rest of us.

If a few box scores dip that week, at least everyone will know why.

Ray Ampoloquio Editor and News Writer, GTA BOOM

Ray is a GTA BOOM editor and news writer covering GTA 6, Rockstar and Take-Two, GTA Online and franchise history using primary-source reporting.