NBA agrees to terms of record $76 billion, 11-year media rights deal, AP source says

The NBA has agreed to the terms of its new media deal, a record 11-year deal worth $76 billion that ensures player salaries will continue to rise for the foreseeable future and is sure to change the way some viewers access the game In the next years.

A person familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press that the networks have the term sheets, with the next step being for the league’s board of governors to approve the contracts.

The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity Wednesday because they were not at liberty to discuss such imminent matters.

The deal, which set NBA records for both duration and total value, takes effect for the 2025-26 season. Games will continue to be broadcast on ESPN and ABC, and now some will go to NBC and Amazon Prime. TNT Sports, which has been part of the league’s broadcasting family since the 1980s, may be on its way out, but it has five days to close one of the deals.

The five-day clock would begin once the league sent the finalized contracts to TNT.

Atlético was the first to inform about the contracts.

ESPN and ABC will continue to have the league’s main package, which includes the NBA Finals and one of the conference finals series. ABC has broadcast the NBA Finals since 2003. ABC would continue to air games on Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons once the NFL regular season ended.

ESPN’s main nights would continue to be Wednesdays, with some games on Fridays and Sundays.

The return of NBC, which aired NBA games from 1990 to 2002, gives the league two broadcast network partners for the first time.

NBC would show the games on Sunday night once the NFL season ended. Games will air on Tuesdays during the regular season, while a package of Monday night games will stream exclusively on Peacock.

Prime Video would have games on Thursday night after finishing airing NFL games. His other nights would be Friday and Saturday.

NBC and Prime Video would alternate who would lead the other conference final.

In the short term, the deal almost certainly means the league’s salary cap will increase by 10% annually — the maximum allowed under the terms of the most recent Collective Bargaining Agreement between the NBA and its players. That means players like Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Dallas’ Luka Doncic could earn around $80 million in the 2030-31 season, and raises at least some possibility that top players could earn something close to $100 million per season by the mid-2030s.

It also paves the way for the next important item on the NBA’s to-do list: Expansion.

Commissioner Adam Silver has been very clear about the order of his main agenda items in recent seasons, these being the preservation of industrial peace (which was achieved with the new CBA), the achievement of a new media agreement (now essentially completed ) and then, and only then, does the league turn its attention to adding new franchises. Las Vegas and Seattle are typically among the cities most mentioned as prime candidates for expansion, with others like Montreal, Vancouver and Kansas City expected to also have interested groups.

As broadcast rights packages have grown in total value over the last 25 years, so have salaries, due to how much this revenue stream ends up feeding into 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 this season has surpassed $10 million per player – and it will only continue to rise from here.

When the NBC-Turner deal that began a quarter-century ago expired, the next deal — covering six seasons — cost ABC, ESPN and Turner about $4.6 billion. The next was a seven-year deal that cost these networks $7.4 billion.

The current deal, which will expire next season, broke those records – nine years, nearly $24 billion.

And now, that looks like pocket change.

From the agreement started in 1998-99 to the one now concluded, starting in 2025, the total value has increased by around 2,800%. Considering inflation between then and now, the value rises by around 1,400%.

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