NBA agrees to 11-year, $76 billion media rights deal

FILE – NBA Commissioner Adam Silver speaks to the media at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana, on February 17, 2024. Justin Casterline/Getty Images/AFP

The NBA has agreed to its new media deal, an 11-year, record-breaking $76 billion pact that ensures player salaries will continue to rise for the foreseeable future and is sure to change the way some viewers watch the game in the coming years.

A person familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press that the networks have prepared term sheets and the next step will be for the league’s board of directors to approve the contract.

The person spoke to The Associated Press on Wednesday on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss such looming issues.

The contract, which sets an NBA record for both length and total value, will take effect during the 2025-26 season. Games will continue to air on ESPN and ABC, with some now moving to NBC and Amazon Prime. TNT Sports, which has been part of the league’s broadcast family since the 1980s, may be on the way out but has five days to match one of the contracts.

read: Charles Barkley says next season will be his last on TV

Once the league sends the completed contract to TNT, the five-day clock will begin.

The Athletic first reported the contract.

ESPN and ABC will continue to air the league’s top events, including the NBA Finals and one of the Eastern Conference Finals series. ABC has broadcast the NBA Finals since 2003. When the NFL regular season concludes, ABC will continue to broadcast games on Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons.

ESPN’s main programming will still air on Wednesday nights, with some games on Friday and Sunday.

NBC, which broadcast NBA games from 1990 to 2002, returns to the league with two broadcast network partners for the first time.

Once the NFL season is over, NBC will air games on Sunday nights. Throughout the regular season, NBC will air games on Tuesdays, while the Monday night package will be available exclusively on Peacock.

read: NBA season scoring surge doesn’t worry Adam Silver

Prime Video will air NFL games on Thursday nights and other days on Fridays and Saturdays.

NBC and Prime Video will take turns hosting the other conference finals.

In the short term, the deal almost certainly means the league’s salary cap will rise 10% annually — the maximum allowed by the terms 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 it raises the possibility, at least in part, that top players could be making close to $100 million per season by the mid-2030s.

It also clears the way for the next big thing on the NBA’s to-do list: expansion.

Commissioner Adam Silver has been very clear about his priorities in recent seasons: maintain labor peace (which has been achieved with the new collective bargaining agreement), secure a new media agreement (now largely complete), and then turn his attention to adding new teams. Las Vegas and Seattle are usually the most popular expansion candidates, with other cities such as Montreal, Vancouver and Kansas City also expected to have interested parties.

As the total value of broadcast rights packages has grown over the past 25 years, so have player salaries, as that revenue ultimately pushes up the salary cap.

When NBC and Turner agreed to a four-year, $2.6 billion deal that began with the 1998-99 season, the salary cap was $30 million per team and the average salary was about $2.5 million. The average salary per player this season is more than $10 million — and it’s set to rise.

When the NBC-Turner contract, signed 25 years ago, expired, the next contract, which covered six seasons, cost ABC, ESPN, and Turner about $4.6 billion. The next contract, which lasted seven years, cost the networks $7.4 billion.

The current contract, which expires next season, breaks those records — nine years and nearly $24 billion.

Now it seems like just pocket money.

The total value has risen by about 2,800% from the agreement that started in 1998-99 to the current agreement that will start in 2025. Even taking into account inflation between then and now, the value has risen by about 1,400%.