What NBA's new TV deal means for league's salary cap, and why we won't see a repeat of the 2016 spike
CBSN
The league was prepared for the new TV deal this time around
In a perfect world, the business decisions that the NBA makes off of the court should never affect the product it puts out on it. That famously was not the case when the NBA agreed to a new $24 billion television rights deal with Disney and Turner in October 2014. That deal, which roughly tripled the league's previous national television revenue, set the stage for the most drastic cap spike in NBA history. Between the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons, the salary cap rose a staggering 32% in a single offseason. That spike from a $70 million cap to a $94.1 million cap wreaked havoc with the league's competitive balance for the next several years. 2024-25 $140.588 million 2025-26 $154.647 million 2026-27 $170.111 million 2027-28 $187.123 million 2028-29 $205.835 million 2029-30 $226.418 million 2029-30 $79.246 million 2030-31 $85.586 million 2031-32 $91.926 million 2032-33 $98.266 million 2033-34 $104.606 million Total $459.810 million
It gave the Golden State Warriors the cap space to sign Kevin Durant without breaking up their core of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala, but it also gave the rest of the league similar space to sign far less talented free agents to far worse deals. Remember when Timofey Mozgov got $64 million? How about Chandler Parsons' max deal with the Grizzlies?
This might at least seem like a victory for the players, but it ultimately wasn't. While 2016's free agents got paid, the cap didn't continue spiking from there, so free agents in 2017 and 2018 found themselves drastically underpaid because of the lack of available cap space. In 2016, 35 players signed deals worth $40 million or more in free agency. Two years later, despite the cap actually rising by another $7 million, that figure dropped to just 10, and the only player in the group to change teams was LeBron James. On virtually all fronts, the 2016 spike was a disaster for the NBA.
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