A person familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press that while the networks have the term sheets, the next step is for the contracts to be approved by the league’s board of governors.
The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity Wednesday because they were not at liberty to discuss such impending matters.
The Board of Governors meets in Las Vegas next week to coincide with the NBA Summer League, and it would seem logical that deals — if they make it through various committees and receive other approvals — would be finalized around that time. can be given.
The NBA had no comment Wednesday.
The deal, which set an NBA record for both its length and total value, will be in effect for the 2025-26 season. Games will continue to air on ESPN and ABC and some will now air on NBC and Amazon Prime. TNT Sports, which has been part of the league’s broadcast family since the 1980s, may be out, but it has five days to match one of the deals.
The five-day competition will begin after the league sends the prepared contract to TNT.
Was the first to report on athletic contracts.
ESPN and ABC will continue to have the league’s top package, which includes one of the NBA Finals and conference finals series. ABC has been broadcasting the NBA Finals since 2003. ABC will continue to air games on Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons once the NFL regular season ends.
ESPN’s main nights will remain Wednesdays with some Friday and Sunday games.
The Finalist exclusivity comes with a big price increase. The Walt Disney Co., which owns ESPN and ABC, will pay $2.6 billion per year under the new contract, compared with $1.4 billion under its current deal.
The return of NBC, which aired NBA games from 1990 to 2002, gave the league two broadcast network partners for the first time.
NBC – whose deal is expected to be worth $2.5 billion per season – will air games on Sunday nights after the NFL season ends. It will air games on Tuesdays throughout the regular season while a package of Monday night games will be streamed exclusively on Peacock.
Prime Video will air Thursday night games after completing NFL games. Its other nights will be Friday and Saturday.
NBC and Prime Video will alternate who finalizes the second conference. The rights to Prime Video will average $1.8 billion per year.
TNT Sports is paying $1.4 billion per season. Considering the volume of the three offered packages, this would make Prime Video rights the one it would be likely to try and match.
Silver said during the NBA Finals last month that the length of the deal – he did not specifically confirm an 11-year agreement – is “good for the sustainability of the league”.
“But that means to some extent you’re trying to predict the future, which of course is impossible,” Silver said in June. “So part of it is a bet on the partners we will ultimately align with and their ability to adapt to the times and also their willingness to continue investing in media and becoming global, which is very important to my first point. There’s the league, as well.”
In the short term, the deal almost certainly means the league’s salary cap will increase by 10% annually – the maximum allowed by 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 make around $80 million in the 2030-31 season and creates at least some possibility that top players could make around $100 million per season by the mid-2030s Can earn. ,
It also clears the way for the next major item on the NBA’s to-do list: expansion.
Silver was very clear on the order of his top agenda items in recent seasons, which included preserving labor peace (which was achieved with the new CBA), getting a new media deal (now essentially complete) and Only after that there will be changes in the league, its focus is on adding new franchises. Las Vegas and Seattle are typically among the most prominently mentioned cities as top expansion candidates, with other cities such as Montreal, Vancouver and Kansas City also expected to have interested groups.
Since the total value of broadcast rights packages has increased over the past 25 years, salaries also vary depending on how much the revenue stream exceeds the salary cap.
When NBC and Turner agreed to a four-year deal worth $2.6 billion, starting 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 has exceeded $10 million this season – and it’s only going up 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. Next was a seven-year deal, which cost those networks $7.4 billion.
The current deal, which expires next season, shatters those records – nine years, about $24 billion.
And now, it feels like pocket change.
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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA
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