NBA Announces Massive Nine Year TV Deal

The National Basketball Association (NBA) announced a massive new nine year contract renewal with media partners Media Sports and ESPN, in a deal worth $24 billion.

“This is a significant deal for our company and we are pleased to continue our long-standing partnership with the NBA, its fans, owners and players,” said David Levy, the President of Turner Broadcasting Systems in an announcement to the press today. “The agreement locks in some of the most valuable, original, premium live sports programming that we’ll continue to monetize across TNT and all other platforms within our extensive portfolio and will help further grow our businesses into the next decade.”

The value of the contracts between the three entities wasn’t made public, although sports analysts agree that $24 billion is a logical price-tag to put on the deal. This is three times the annual value of the previous contract signed between the groups.

According to BleacherReport, Turner Broadcasting paid the NBA $445 million under the previous agreement, while ESPN paid $485 million. The agreement runs through the 2015-2016 season.

A statement put out by ESPN president John Skipper read: “The NBA has never been more popular and it continues to grow under Adam [Silver]’s leadership. By acquiring significantly more NBA content for both existing and yet-to-be created platforms, we will establish a vibrant, year-round NBA presence for fans. For ESPN, this agreement continues our fruitful, longstanding relationship with the NBA and bolsters what is already the sports industry’s most impressive and impactful collection of media rights.”

The new deal will also impact players’ salaries, and ESPN estimates that the salary cap for the 2016-2017 season could be as much as $88 million (compared to $63.5 million in the 2014-2015 season).

The new deal also means that other companies such as Fox, who were hoping to get in on a deal with the NBA, will be left out of the picture for now.