Sticker shock: NBA could have a $100 million a year player within a decade - NBC Sports

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The NBA’s new television rights deal is not finalized, but one thing is becoming crystal clear:

The day of the $100 million a year NBA player is coming.

The NBA is about to start making a lot more money. The NBA’s current national broadcast television deals bring in $2.6 billion a season — that is expected to jump to the ballpark of $6.9 billion a season starting in 2025-26. That money is split between the owners and players (through the Collective Bargaining Agreement).

That means players’ salaries are going to skyrocket over the next decade. The salary cap for next year is projected to be $141 million, but starting in the 2025-26 season, the cap will start going up 10% a season (the maximum it is allowed to under the CBA) for the foreseeable future. That all sounds abstract, but what it means on the ground paints a better picture:

In the summer of 2025 Dallas can (and, as it looks now, almost certainly will) offer max extensions to Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic where their first-year salaries on the extension will be north of $54 million and $59 million, respectively.

In the summer of 2025, the Dallas #Mavericks are likely to extend both Luka Doncic (5 years, $346.3M) & Kyrie Irving (4 years, $243.2M), guaranteeing nearly $600M to their elite backcourt.Career Earnings after these contracts are completed:Kyrie (36): $553MLuka (31): $544M pic.twitter.com/YRF5s5cTB5

— Spotrac (@spotrac) May 27, 2024

And then it keeps going up — the salary cap will pass $200 million for the 2028-29 season. A 10-year veteran player signing a 35% of the cap max contract that summer will start at $72 million a year and the fifth-year salary on that max will be $95 million. (Numbers via Mike Vorkunov at The Athletic.)

One year later, in the summer of 2029, the salary cap will be above $240 million, and a five-year veteran max contract would start at $84.3 million and, by year four, earn $104.6 million per season.

If the cap keeps rising at 10% a year through the 2032-33 season, it will pass the $300 million mark, and the first-year salary on a 35% max will be more than $100 million a season.

Sticker shock.

The owners will be getting richer through all of this, too — their labor costs for players are fixed at (roughly) 50% of basketball related income, which means just as much money is flowing into the business side as the players’ side. While some costs will rise on that side of the operation, it will not be at the pace of money flowing in from the television deals. And all of that does not take into account the fast-rising values of NBA franchises — money that all goes to the owner if the team is sold.

Whatever happens with the new television rights deals, whenever it is announced, one thing is clear: NBA players are going to be big winners.