Apparently one season wasn’t nearly enough for Shaquille O’Neal.
Shaq’s professional dunk league Dunkman will return in 2027—and the Big Diesel has considerably bigger plans this time around.
More cities.
More countries.
Team competitions.
And even a junior division.
In other words, Shaq isn’t treating this like another television show that happened to get renewed.
He’s trying to build a sport.
“The debut of ‘Dunkman’ proved what I already knew: these athletes are superstars, and dunking is a professional sport,” O’Neal said in announcing the expansion. “Next year we’re going bigger.”
If anyone knows something about the entertainment value of dunking, we’d probably listen to the guy who spent nearly two decades trying to pull NBA rims out of the floor.
The 2026 edition established Dunkman as a professional league featuring 24 elite dunkers competing through group stages before reaching the World Championship. Dallas native Cam Hazzard eventually became the league’s first world champion and collected a very real $500,000 grand prize.
And viewers apparently liked what they saw.
The inaugural season attracted 5.7 million total viewers on TNT while Dunkman content generated more than 1.5 billion social media video views and 33 million engagements.
Those aren’t exactly “cute little experiment” numbers.
For 2027, Dunkman will expand beyond its original format with regional qualifying competitions in the United States and internationally. Aspiring dunkers will perform in front of professional judges, with the best earning opportunities to advance into the league.
Shaq is also introducing team-based competitions for the first time.
But perhaps the most interesting addition is Dunkman Junior, a division for athletes 15 and younger competing on nine-foot rims.
That gives Shaq something bigger than a TV property. It potentially creates a development system where young dunkers can actually grow into the professional competition.
And that’s exactly the point.
“We’re building the future of the sport,” Shaq said.
Dunkman also fits perfectly into Shaq’s increasingly gigantic post-basketball television and entertainment career.
He remains one of television’s most recognizable basketball personalities as part of the Emmy-winning Inside the NBAcrew alongside Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Ernie Johnson. He’s also moved deeper into producing through Jersey Legends Productions, while juggling enough other entertainment projects to make us wonder whether the man has secretly discovered a 32-hour day.
Then there’s DJ Diesel.
And the podcasts.
And the commercials.
And the businesses.
And now he’s commissioner of his own professional sports league.
Retirement apparently means something different when you’re Shaquille O’Neal.
But Dunkman might be one of his most natural ventures yet.
Shaq became famous partly because of the sheer spectacle of watching a 7-foot-1, 300-plus-pound human being attack a basketball rim. He understands that a great dunk isn’t merely two points.
It’s theater.
It’s athleticism.
It’s creativity.
And occasionally, it’s a good reason to check whether the backboard is still attached.
Now Shaq wants to give the world’s greatest dunkers their own stage.
Season one proved people would watch.
In 2027, the Big Diesel plans to see just how high this thing can fly.