The NBA on Monday will announce an enormous nine-year, $24 billion deal to continue airing games on ESPN and TNT, according to The New York Times. The deal will go into effect after the 2015-16 season.
The deal will be roughly three times the size of the league's existing TV contract, and a steep increase from what analysts had predicted a new compact would look like. Past estimates predicted the deal would be worth about $2 billion per year; the actual figure is about $2.66 billion.
The lucrative contract is likely to presage a big bump in the league's salary cap, and thus players' salaries, too. And it comes at a time when other pro sports leagues are also inking huge TV deals. Most notably, pro baseball teams have signed huge regional TV deals in recent years, and in 2012, the league itself signed an eight-year, $12.4 billion contract with Fox and TBS.
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