NBA Will Announce New Television Rights Deals Tomorrow

The NBA will announce its new media rights partnerships during a Monday press conference, the league said in a press release today. Commissioner Adam Silver will field questions tomorrow morning at 10:00AM from New York City’s St. Regis hotel.

The NBA’s TV rights partnerships expire after the 2015-2016 season. Previous reports have indicated that the league could double its current fees from ABC/ESPN and Turner in new contracts, placing their worth at approximately $950 million individually. Though there’s been nothing in the interim to confirm that news or the widely-held assumption that the league will remain exclusive to their current partners going forward, both possibilities are virtual locks.

Such a significant spike in revenue will have a direct influence on the salary cap, and thus future contract negotiations between teams and players. There’s been speculation shepherded by intel from Grantland’s Zach Lowe that the league may consider a drastic measure to ease the inevitable cap jump gleaned from its new TV deals by spreading it out over multiple seasons beginning next year. But that move would leave teams in a tight spot considering they operated all summer under the assumption the cap would sit near its projected mark of $66.5 million.

Future salary cap implications aren’t quite clear, but one thing is – the NBA is making absolute bank off of these new television contracts. Let’s hope its owners and players can find a fair way to divide it by 2017 so we don’t have to endure another lockout.

What do you think?

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