The NBA has reached a new 11-year, $76 billion media deal that ensures player salaries will continue to rise.
The agreement will also surely change the way many television viewers watch the sport.
A person familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press that the networks have the contracts and the next step is for the league’s governing board to approve them.
The person spoke yesterday on condition of anonymity because he is not free to speak on the matter.
The deal, which sets an NBA record for both length and total value, will take effect with the 2025-26 season. Games will continue to air on ESPN and ABC, with some now airing on NBC and Amazon Prime. TNT Sports, which had been part of the NBA broadcast family since the 1980s, could be on its way out, but it has five days to match one of the deals.
The five-day clock starts ticking when the league sends the completed contract to TNT.
The Athletic first reported the contracts.
In the short term, the deal means the league’s salary cap will increase by 10 percent a year — the maximum allowed under the terms of the NBA’s most recent collective bargaining agreement with the players’ union. That means some players, such as Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Dallas’ Luka Doncic, could be making around $80 million in the 2030-31 season. It also raises the odds that elite players will be making around $100 million a season by the mid-2030s.
The new deal would also pave the way for the next big item on the NBA’s to-do list: expansion.
League commissioner Adam Silver has been very clear in his ranking of the issues on his agenda in recent campaigns. Chief among them was preserving labor peace.
Only then would the league turn its attention to adding franchises, Silver had warned. Las Vegas and Seattle are often mentioned among candidates to host an NBA team.
The current agreement, which expires next season, was for nine years and nearly 24 billion dollars.— AP
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2024-07-23 04:37:07
