The 2024-2025 NBA season begins in an era of change — fresh off a new round of media rights deals, a year removed from a new collective bargaining agreement the reigning champions are about to hit the market. There are more changes on the horizon, with expansion likely on the way and the increasing internationalization of the sport inevitable.

Below the Sportico The staff identifies where the world’s second most valuable sports league ranks in six facets of its operations.

New League Economy

The NBA’s financial model began to move closer to the NFL’s last decade when the TV deal tripled rights fees to teams. It will accelerate after this year’s $76 billion, 11-year deal, which will increase the average annual payment by more than 150%. The financial spread between the highest and lowest clubs is narrowing as the division of competitions becomes a larger share of the total revenue pie. This transformation and international opportunities that will also be shared are why the ‘entry price’ for an NBA franchise has doubled in the last four years.

Players share in the growth because the salary cap is tied to basketball-related income, which aims for a roughly 50-50 BRI split between owners and players. The cap rose just 3.3% this season, after back-to-back years of 10% gains. The cap should increase by up to 10% per year for the foreseeable future, raising more than $300 million by the 2032-33 season on contracts worth more than $100 million per year. Steph Curry has the NBA’s highest salary this season: $55.8 million. -Kurt Badenhausen

The next franchise sale

In early July, less than two weeks after the Boston Celtics won their NBA-record 18th season, the Grousbeck family shocked the NBA by announcing they were putting the team up for sale. Patriarch Irving Grousbeck is in his nineties and his family decided to liquidate their most valuable asset. They led a group that paid $360 million for the team in 2002; it is now worth more than $5 billion.

Since that announcement, the process has moved forward, albeit slowly. The ownership group hired a few banks to carry out the process, and SporticoOur understanding is that the ‘data room’ would open around the start of the season. That’s the point at which potential buyers can examine the team’s financials and begin their own due diligence.

The Celtics will break the record for the highest valuation in an NBA control sale (currently $4 billion), but by how much? will be a closely watched question. The team has committed a lot of money to its stars, it is a tenant in its arena and the NBA’s new media deals have been signed. This sale will be a good litmus test for sports valuations across the industry. -Eben Novy-Williams

Potential expansion

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver previously said he would turn his attention to expansion once the league finalizes its next media rights plans. This summer, the league signed a deal package. So the conversation is back on the table: when will the competition be expanded?

“We’re not quite done yet,” Silver said in September. “There’s certainly interest in the process, (but) we’re not there yet in terms of making specific decisions about markets, or even, frankly, expanding.”

Former Seattle Supersonics fans are eager to know the answer as residents hope a franchise returns to the Puget Sound after their club moved to Oklahoma City in 2008. Rumors are swirling that Seattle and Las Vegas may be the next two NBA cities. . In the meantime, ownership groups, including one led by Vegas Golden Knights owner Bill Foley, would be eager to get involved if the league greenlights a team in Sin City.

The NBA, which was last expanded in 2004, is dealing with this in a calculated manner. Silver has highlighted the complexities of the league’s expansion, including selling shares in the league and how adding teams would affect recently signed media deals. -Erik Jackson

A Lame Duck media season

Unless you’re one of the advertisers spending a collective $1.3 billion on in-game inventory between now and the NBA Finals, there’s no point in worrying about the league’s ratings this season. The final campaign under the nine-year, $24 billion deal with Disney’s ESPN and ABC and Warner Bros. Discovery’s TNT will also be the last time the NBA will draw most of its imprints from the dying basic cable universe, making the 2024-25 the lamest of the lame ducks. (Picture the Oregon mascot riding a mobility scooter around the Eugene campus and you’re about halfway there.)

That’s not to say the NBA’s swan song as the first cable offering won’t be successful; Last season, the three main TV partners averaged 1.6 million viewers per game, which is about where things stood at the end of 2022-2023… and 2021-2022. And while total shipments are down nearly 20% over the past decade, that’s largely a result of the competition’s over-reliance on the out-of-favor cable bundle, which has lost 40% of its customer base since 2019.

By welcoming NBC back into the fold after a more than two-decade hiatus, the NBA is primed for a major telecast once its 11-year, $76 billion media package kicks off next fall. Comcast’s wireless flagship will broadcast about 50 regular-season games on Thursdays and post-NFL Sundays, a platform switcheroo that automatically increases the league’s reach by about 15.5 million households. None of this suggests that ratings will ever again reach the dizzying heights of the Jordan era – that ship has sailed and all hands are lost – but a 12% improvement, to 1.8 million viewers per window, is not out of the question . of the realm of possibilities.

One caveat to keep in mind as the NBA becomes less reliant on the shrinking cable bundle: The league is still leaning heavily on a guy who will turn 40 at the end of the year, while LeBron James and the Lakers were good in 2023-24 for seven players. of the 10 most watched regular season games. Another guaranteed draw, Steph Curry, is 36. Until the younger guys step up and at least one new superstar can make a case for James’s successor as the face of the league, it could be some time before the spoils of NBA’s big retro- movement is really visible. pop. -Antonius Crupi

Lead and replay debates

Officiating has been a point of contention, probably since the first time one of James Naismith’s students complained about a phone call in 1891.

Last season, NBA officials started calling about four fewer fouls per game after the All-Star break. The league says this will remain the status quo in 2024-2025 after players adapt to the slightly more physical and free-flowing style of play.

“The way the game was played after that (the adjustment) was actually something that fans, players, GMs (and) coaches really appreciated in terms of how the game looked,” NBA president of league ops Byron Spruell said in a interview. “The plan is … to make that consistent and meet expectations as we get into the season.”

However, one adjustment has been made to the rules: during replay challenges related to out-of-bounds decisions, referees can now retroactively award fouls on contact that contributed to the stoppage. In part, the update is a response to controversial actions at the end of Western Conference Finals Game 2 and NBA Finals Game 3. –Jacob Veldman

Historical parity

For the first time in NBA history, six different franchises have won the past six championships. “We are witnessing unprecedented equality in the NBA,” Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum told the media on Tuesday.

This is by design. The league’s collective bargaining agreement, which went into effect in July 2023, limits roster building options for teams whose spending on player salaries exceeds certain thresholds above the salary cap. These rules make it difficult for teams with talented rosters to keep those cores together for more than a few years. We have already seen the consequences of the impending restrictions; Immediately after the conference finals, the Minnesota Timberwolves traded All-Star Karl-Anthony Towns in part because his contract would become too expensive to stay below the dreaded “second apron” threshold.

Defending champion Celtics are ready for a repeat after bringing back their entire rotation. And yet, their 3-to-1 title odds are still less than those of any preseason favorite in the 2010s decade. After this season, Boston’s finances will be tricky, with extensions for several starters that combine their salaries plus luxury tax bill into would reach $500 million.

The era of dynasties could be over, and that’s exactly how Commissioner Adam Silver wants it. -Lev Akabas

(This article was updated in the officiating section with a quote from Byron Spruell.)