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NBA’s new TV deal is worth $76 BILLION, and the salary cap is exploding again
The NBA’s new TV deal is here, and it’s going to pump so much more money into the league.
www.sbnation.com
The NBA’s new media deal was always going to be big, but nobody predicted just how massive the league’s financial gains would be. A report from the Wall Street Journal indicates that the agreed to deal with NBC, ESPN and Amazon will be 11 years, $76 BILLION — shattering even the high-end of expectations.
The figure averages out to just over $6.9B a year, representing a 265 percent increase over what the NBA was getting from Warner Bros. Discovery, ESPN and ABC. The parent company of TNT, as well as Disney had been paying a combined $2.6B a year to air NBA games. The agreement with Warner Bros. Discovery was part of an uninterrupted deal that started in 1988 with TNT in cable’s infancy. This new contract marks the first time the NBA has truly jumped ship to new networks in almost 40 years, which as fans have mourned, will mean the end of the legendary Inside the NBA due to the talent having existing contracts with Warner Bros. Discovery.
This will only keep rising. Sean Marks, general manager of the Brooklyn Nets told the New York Post that he expects that by 2032 these supermax contracts will be worth over $100M per year due to the new media rights deal. That figure would easily surpass the $70M AAV Shohei Ohtani is earning with the Dodgers, and dwarf Joe Burrow’s deal, which is the highest AAV contract in the NFL at $55M.
At this point estimates are on the low-end too, with new rights deals being brokered globally likely pushing these salaries higher due to the NBA’s unprecedented popularity internationally.
Who could the first $100M a year man in the NBA be? It’s early, but go ahead and pencil in in Victor Wembanyama. Wemby’s rookie deal runs through 2026-27, at which point he’d presumably sign a 5-year supermax deal which would be due to an extension after 2032-33 — right when it’s expected the magic number will be reached.
The future is ludicrously bright for the NBA, and players are destined to become some of the highest-paid athletes in history because of it.