The NBA has agreed to terms on a new media deal, a record 11-year, $76 billion pact that will ensure player salaries continue to rise for the foreseeable future and is sure to change how some viewers access the game for years to come.
A person familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press that the networks have already received the term sheet and the next step is for the league’s board of governors to approve the deal.
The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Wednesday because he could not discuss such pressing issues.
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The deal, which set an NBA record for both length and total value, goes into effect in the 2025-26 season. Games will continue to air on ESPN and ABC, with select games on NBC and Amazon Prime in the future. TNT Sports, part of the NBA broadcast family since the 1980s, may be leaving but still has five more days to match one of the deals.
The five-day countdown will begin once the league sends the completed contract to TNT.
The deal was first reported by The Athletic.
ESPN and ABC will continue to broadcast the league’s best package, which includes the NBA Finals and one of the conference finals series. ABC has aired the NBA Finals since 2003. ABC will continue to broadcast games on Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons, when the NFL regular season ends.
FILE – Tobias Harris (center) of the Philadelphia 76ers weaves between Dean Wade (left) and George Niang of the Cleveland Cavaliers for a shot during the first half of an NBA basketball midseason tournament game in Philadelphia, Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2023. The NBA has agreed to terms on a new media deal, an 11-year agreement worth $76 billion that will ensure player salaries continue to rise for the foreseeable future and certainly change how viewers access the game for years to come. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)
ESPN’s main night will still be Wednesday, with some games scheduled to air on Friday and Sunday.
The return of NBC, which aired NBA games from 1990 to 2002, will mean the NBA will have two broadcast network partners for the first time.
NBC will broadcast games on Sunday nights after the NFL season ends, then every Tuesday during the regular season, with Monday night games available exclusively on Peacock.
Prime Video will air the game on Thursday nights after NFL games, with the other nights being Friday and Saturday.
NBC and Prime Video will alternate broadcasting the other conference finals.
In the short term, the deal almost certainly means that the league’s salary cap will rise 10% each year, a limit allowed by provisions of the latest collective bargaining agreement between the NBA and its players. That means players like Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Dallas’ Luka Doncic could make around $80 million in 2030-31, and there’s at least some chance that top players could be making closer to $100 million a season by the mid-2030s.
This would also pave the way for the NBA’s next major agenda: expansion.
Commissioner Adam Silver has made his order of priorities very clear in recent seasons: maintain labor peace (achieved with a new collective bargaining agreement), reach a new media deal (now essentially complete), and only then will the league look to add new franchises. Las Vegas and Seattle are typically among the cities most often mentioned as expansion candidates, with other groups such as Montreal, Vancouver and Kansas City also expected to express interest.
As the total value of broadcast rights packages has increased over the past 25 years, so have salaries, depending on how much that revenue stream ultimately contributes to the salary cap.
When NBC and Turner agreed to a four-year, $2.6 billion deal beginning with the 1998-99 season, the salary cap was $30 million per team and the average salary was about $2.5 million. This season, the average salary is more than $10 million per player and will continue to rise.
When the NBC-Turner deal that began a quarter century ago expired, the next six seasons of the deal cost ABC, ESPN and Turner about $4.6 billion. The next deal, for seven years, will cost the networks $7.4 billion.
The current contract, which expires next season, shatters those records at about $24 billion over nine years.
And now it seems like pocket change.
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The total price has risen by about 2,800% from the contract that began in 1998-99 to the one that now begins in 2025. If you take inflation into account between then and now, the value has increased by about 1,400%.
