Seeing everyday players getting 100 million dollar contracts made me wonder, is there a contingency for when the NBA makes less money than the year before. A lot of this is based on TV revenue, right? And ESPN etc has been losing lots of customers. Could these extra revenue the league is expecting eventually never materialize leaving a bunch of overpaid players in a league that cannot support them?
the overall amount the players get is always tied to league revenues (long story short, about a 50% split) so a decrease in revenue would just leave less money for that year's free agents and they would get screwed relative to the guys who already got paid. which is kind of going to happen anyway since this year's class sucked up a lot of future money with their contracts.
Just like the players have multiyear contracts, the NBA does, too. The new TV Contracts are for 9 years, starting this year, lasting through 2024-2025 For $24B ... http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Morning-Buzz/2014/10/06/NBA-media-deals.aspx?utm_campaign=Wildfire+Message+-+Breakdown+of+NBA’s+$24B+rights+deal:+ESPN+will...&utm_content=po_1522115&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter And when you say "Financial Contraction" are you equating ESPN subscribers to NBA ratings? I don't think that's how it works. They are not the only contract, and maybe ESPN will just need to sell it's rights to another channel, at worst. ie. it's probably absurd to say the troubles of any single TV channel would cause the NFL to lose TV revenue.
