The minimum salary for players signing contracts in the 2025/26 NBA season amounted to **** million U.S. dollars. This represented an increase of around ** percent from the previous season, when the figure stood at **** million U.S. dollars.

In the 2024/25 National Basketball Association (NBA) season, veteran players with over 10 years of service in the league were entitled to a minimum salary of *** million U.S. dollars. Meanwhile, minimum salaries for NBA rookies totaled **** million U.S. dollars.

The NBA and WNBA are the two top leagues for basketball in the United States for men and women, respectively. In the NBA, players took home an average annual salary of over ** million U.S. dollars for the 2024/25 season, with the league's minimum salary set at **** million U.S. dollars that year. In comparison, players in the WNBA received an average annual pay of ******* U.S. dollars in the 2025 season, with the highest-earning players in the WNBA receiving around ******* U.S. dollars annually.

The 2024/25 NBA season saw 569 players featured across the 30 teams playing in the league. This was a slight decrease from the previous season when the figure stood at 572.

With each player taking home a handsome 8.32 million U.S. dollars every year, the NBA is the professional sports league with the highest player wages worldwide. In second place is the Indian Premier League, an annual cricket competition contested each year between eight franchises representing eight different Indian cities.

Big money in the NBA Although the wages that players in the NBA take home are astronomical, the average annual salaries vary from one team to another. Whilst the New York Knicks pay their players an average of 7.08 million U.S. dollars a year, Portland Trail Blazers spent around 10.04 million U.S. dollars annually on each of their stars in 2019/20. NBA salaries have tremendously increased throughout the years reaching 8.32 million U.S. dollars in 2019/20 compared to 4.6 million U.S. dollars in 2015/16.

Context

When I set out to gather data for my first NBA-related project, I used the IMPORTHTML function from Google Sheets repeatedly on Basketball-Reference's Play Index (now Stathead), which was...not ideal to say the least. So I decided to learn how to web-scrape and compile this historical data for everyone to use (in the mold of Lahman's Baseball Database).

Content

There are 3 leagues represented: the National Basketball Association (1950-present), the NBA's predecessor in the Basketball Association of America (1947-1949) and the NBA's past competitor in the American Basketball Association (1968-1976)

There are three informational files: Player Season Info, Player Career Info & Team Abbrevs. Each player was given a unique player ID to facilitate aggregation into career stats. (Update for 2026: each player's unique player ID is the player slug used for their Basketball-Reference Page: https:// www.basketball-reference.com/ players / [first letter of last name] / [player slug].html).

On the team side, there are 7 files: - totals & opponent totals - per game & opponent per game statistics - per 100 possessions & opponent per 100 possessions statistics (starting from 1974) - team summaries

On the player side, there are 12 files: - player totals - player per game stats - player per 36 minute stats - player per 100 possessions stats (starting from 1974) - player advanced stats - player play by play stats (starting from 1997) - percentage of time spent at different positions, fouls drawn & committed, etc - player shooting stats (starting from 1997) - success rate and attempt rate from different shot distances - end of season teams (All-Defense, All-Rookie, All-League) - end of season team voting (All-League) - all-star selections - awards voting results (Rookie of the Year, Sixth Man of the Year, Most Valuable Player, Defensive Player of the Year, Most Improved Player) - draft pick history

For explanations about a certain stat, I'd suggest checking out Basketball-Reference's glossary.

Acknowledgements

Basketball-Reference for being the greatest comprehensive basketball stats site (in my humble opinion)

Robert Frey and David Schoch for determining how Basketball-Reference formats its pages

Photo by TJ Dragotta on Unsplash

As of 2024, the largest luxury tax bill footed by a team in the NBA came in the 2023/24 season, when the Golden State Warriors were taxed 176.9 million U.S. dollars by the league. The Warriors also held the other top-three spots, bringing their overall luxury tax payments from 2021/22 to 2023/24 to 510.9 million U.S. dollars.

In 2024/25, the 30 franchises comprising the National Basketball Association (NBA) recorded a total revenue amounting to **** billion U.S. dollars. This was an increase of over *** billion dollars from the previous year. What are the NBA's main sources of revenue? Among the NBA's main sources of income are broadcasting deals, sponsorships, and gate receipts. In particular, the NBA's sponsorship revenue has consistently exceeded one billion U.S. dollars since the 2017/18 season. One of the league's main sponsors since then has been Nike, which is the league's official outfitter. Meanwhile, the share of overall revenue from gate receipts in the NBA was around ** percent in 2024/25. Which NBA team generates the most revenue? With a revenue of *** million U.S. dollars, the Golden State Warriors were the NBA team with the highest revenue in the 2024/25 season. Between 2015 and 2023, the Warriors were a dominant force in the NBA, appearing in six of eight finals and winning four championships, ending their trophy drought stretching back to 1975. However, the Warriors still have some way to go to match the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers as the NBA teams with the most championships, with the Celtics winning a record **** championship title in 2024.

During the 2024/25 NBA season, just under ** percent of players were from overseas. This was a slight increase over the previous season, however, remained the level recorded in 2022/23, when it stood at ***** percent. During that season, over *** players featured in at least one NBA game, while *** players appeared in 2024/25.

The National Basketball Association has one of the highest percentages of African American players from the big four professional sports leagues in North America. In 2023, approximately **** percent of NBA players were African American. Meanwhile, ethnically white players constituted a **** percent share of all NBA players that year. After the WNBA and NBA, the National Football League had the largest share of African Americans in a professional sports league in North America. How do other roles in the NBA compare? When it comes to African American representation in the NBA, no other role in the NBA is as well represented by African Americans as players. Meanwhile, on the opposite end of the scale, less than **** percent of team governors in the NBA were African American in 2023. During the 2022/23 season, the role with the second-highest share of African Americans was head coach, with a share of ** percent. That season, the number of African American head coaches in the NBA exceeded the number of white head coaches for the first time. African Americans in the NFL In 2022, the greatest share of players by ethnicity in the NFL were African American, with more than half of all NFL players falling within this group. The representation of African Americans in American Football extended beyond the playing field, with **** percent of NFL assistant coaches being African American in 2022 as well. However, positions such as vice presidents and head coaches were less representative of the African American population, as less than ** percent of the individuals fulfilling these roles in 2022 were African American.

With an estimated net worth of 11 billion U.S. dollars, the Golden State Warriors franchise was the most valuable team in the National Basketball Association (NBA) in 2025. Trailing in second place were the Los Angeles Lakers with a value of 10 billion U.S. dollars. How much revenue does the NBA generate? For the 2024/25 season, NBA teams generated combined revenues of over 12 billion U.S. dollars; regular season ticketing in the NBA accounted for about a fifth of the total. That season, the Golden State Warriors and the Los Angeles Clippers were the NBA franchises that generated the most revenue, with 880 million U.S. dollars and 569 million U.S. dollars, respectively. Meanwhile, the average franchise value in the NBA registered a significant growth between 2014 and 2024, rising from 634 million U.S. dollars to over four billion U.S. dollars. Sports team values Compared to the National Football League (NFL), franchises in the NBA are, on average, worth less. However, since 2018, teams in the NBA have become more valuable than the average team valuation in Major League Baseball (MLB). In 2024, the average franchise value in the National Football League (NFL) was around 5.69 billion, whereas Major League Baseball teams had an average value of over 2.4 billion U.S. dollars. The most valuable NFL franchise was the Dallas Cowboys, valued at 13 billion U.S. dollars in 2025. That year in the MLB, the New York Yankees, with an estimated worth of over eight billion U.S. dollars, were the most valuable MLB franchise.

In 2024/25, the Golden State Warriors generated the most revenue from the National Basketball Association franchises. Specifically, the Golden State Warriors generated 880 million U.S. dollars in revenue by the end of the season.

This graph depicts the average ticket price of all National Basketball Association teams in the 2015/16 season. The average ticket price for a Milwaukee Bucks home game was at 50.30 U.S. dollars in the 2015/16 season.

National Basketball Association (NBA) average ticket price

The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a North American professional basketball league with 29 teams in the United States and one in Canada. The combined revenue of all NBA teams amounted to about 5.9 billion U.S. dollars in the 2015/16 season – 25 percent of this total was generated by regular season ticketing. For the last few seasons, NBA home games brought an average of over 17 thousand people to NBA arenas. The 2016/17 season established a new record for the league in terms of attendance, with an average of 17,884 attendees. Regular season tickets for the 2015/16 season cost 55.88 U.S. dollars on average, the highest figure to date.

The New York Knicks is the franchise that charges the most for its tickets, followed by the Los Angeles Lakers. The average ticket price for a Knicks game stands at more than 129 U.S. dollars, while tickets to Lakers games cost just over a hundred U.S. dollars. With an average price of 30.2 U.S. dollars, tickets for New Orleans Pelicans games are the least expensive in the league.

Compared to the other major North American sports leagues, tickets for NBA games are more expensive than tickets for Major League Baseball (MBL) games, but less expensive than tickets for National Hockey League (NHL) games and National Football League (NFL) games. Of the major sports leagues in the North America, the NFL has the most expensive tickets, with an average ticket price of almost 93 U.S. dollars per game in the 2015/16 season.

When surveyed in January 2025, it was found that the age group with the highest share of NBA fans was the 35 to 49-year-old demographic. In total, 26.2 percent of respondents in this age bracket were fans of the world's leading basketball league. Meanwhile, 7.2 percent of 13 to 17-year-olds were NBA fans.

The National Football League (NFL) was the most watched sports league in the United States in 2023. Viewers watched a combined 974.7 billion minutes of football action across the 284 televised games between November 2022 and November 2023. Meanwhile, Major League Baseball (MLB) ranked second with a little less than 330 billion combined minutes from viewers.

How much does a Super Bowl ad cost?

The price of running an ad during the Super Bowl has tripled over the past two decades. In 2024, advertisers paid an average of seven million U.S. dollars to air a 30-second commercial during the Super Bowl LVI broadcast. The renowned sporting event is highly anticipated each year and is watched by millions around the world. In the U.S., the 2024 edition of the Super Bowl was watched by over 123 million Americans.

How many people watch the World Series?

Unlike the Super Bowl, MLB World Series TV viewership experienced an overall decrease over the past two decades. The games of the 2023 World Series, in which the Texas Rangers achieved a five-game series win over the Arizona Diamondbacks, were watched by around nine million viewers. This shows a considerable drop from the previous year, when nearly 12 million people tuned in to see the Houston Astros win the Commissioner’s Trophy.

Founded in 1996, the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) is a professional basketball league composed of 12 teams from the United States. The Golden State Valkyries registered the highest average home attendance across the 2025 season with 18,064. This was an impressive turnout for the Valkyries', with 2025 being the team's inaugural season in the WNBA, validating the league's decision to expand the league in the San Francisco Bay Area. Player salaries in the WNBA Kelsey Mitchell of the Indiana Fever was the highest earner in the WNBA in the 2025 season, with an annual salary of approximately 249,000 U.S. dollars. Meanwhile, looking at the average annual salaries in the WNBA vs. the NBA, the average WNBA player took home around 114,000 U.S. dollars in 2025, which was nearly 100 times lower than the average NBA player salary in the 2024/25 season. WNBA league records Since the opening season in 1997, former and current WNBA players have been setting high standards and surpassing old ones. Sue Bird was the career games leader of the WNBA, having played a remarkable 580 professional games before her retirement in 2022. Meanwhile, the WNBA's all-time scoring leader was Diana Taurasi as of September 2025, who began her career with the Phoenix Mercury in 2004. Recent years have seen high-profile college basketball players also enter the league, such as Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, and Paige Bueckers, all of whom have helped in varying degrees in raising the league's viewership.

The games of the 2024 NBA Finals had an average TV rating of ***. The 2024 championships were contested between the Boston Celtics and the Dallas Mavericks and saw the Celtics win 4-1 to claim their record-breaking **** NBA title in franchise history.

There are widely considered to be four major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada - NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL. The professional soccer league (MLS) and the Women's NBA have also achieved popularity in the United States in recent years. During a 2024 survey, 34 percent of respondents stated that they were avid fans of the National Football League, NFL.

The average per game attendance during the 2024/25 regular season of the National Basketball Association stood at ******. This marked a slight decrease from the previous season, however, was the second-highest average attendance recorded since 2010/11. NBA attendances The total attendance at regular season games in the NBA also dipped marginally in the 2024/25 season, however, remained over an aggregate total of ** million. The Chicago Bulls had the highest average regular season home attendance among all NBA franchises that year - over ****** spectators attended home games in 2024/25. Meanwhile, the Philadelphia 76ers, the New York Knicks, and the Denver Nuggets also recorded some of the highest average home attendances. NBA TV audiences Over the last five years, the average TV audience for the NBA's regular season has minimally but steadily decreased. During the 2024/25 season, an average of **** million viewers tuned into each NBA regular season fixture across ABC, ESPN, and TNT. The decline in viewership of the NBA Finals, however, has been more dramatic, with the average audience in the United States nearly halving between 2015 and 2024.