Currently, the NBA salary cap stands at $ 109.1 million for the 2021-22 season. At least on paper, since the flexible nature of the salary space means that most teams are between this figure and the 132.6 million that they require to pay the luxury tax. The calculations that lead to this salary space are derived in large part from the television contract that the League signed for 24,000 million dollars for eight seasons before 2016-17. But three years from now for the current contract to come to an end, Jabari Young, a journalist for the NBC, hints that the next could be around 75,000 million. Other sources like Forbes second such information.
The exorbitant figure would represent an increase of more than 300% with respect to the current contract. Which would raise the 119.2 million salary space projected in 2023-24 to 171 for the subsequent 24-25. This agreement, which cannot be described in any other way than that of absolute success, has several sources that explain it. The first is the excellent relationship that the league’s leadership maintains with US television providers such as ESPN, TNT and ABC. But also foreigners, as China will put 1,500 million on the table to buy these rights.
Such a drastic increase in the economy has logical consequences. The most striking is that the maximum contract reserved for a select few and that allows to monopolize 35% of the salary space in a single tab, will reach 59.85 million per year. Thus, comfortably exceeding the barrier of 300 million total dollars when we talk about a five-year contract with a marginal growth of 8% per year. To put it in context, in 2017 Curry signed the first contract in excess of $ 200 million total, which could soon be the norm among league stars. Another effect of the likely new salary ceiling will be that players will begin to sign short-term contracts in order to take the salary jump once the new economic rules come into force.
(Cover photo by Ezra Shaw / undefined)
