Source: NBA TV Contract to be Absolutely Ridiculous

According to Gregory Crawford, an NBA writer for Comcast Sports Northwest, and his "sources," the new NBA TV contract will be in the range of $1.6-1.7 billion dollars per year. This is higher than originally anticipated. Original numbers predicted the contract would be in the $1.2-1.3 billion range.

Sources are telling me that any new #NBA TV deal with will be in the $1.6-1.7 billion range, much higher than anticipated #bigmoney

— Gregory Crawford (@crawssportsbiz) February 7, 2014

The current contract is for $7.4 billion over 8 years ($930 million per year). Assuming this contract is the same length, that's as much as $13.6 billion over its duration, an increase of 83%. It's unknown what kind of sources Crawford has, but CSNNW did previously report that Damian Lillard was in the Slam Dunk Contest before that was formally announced. Plus, you know... he works for Comcast.

We have no way of knowing if this contract includes any kind of expansion, or could be the precursor for such a thing. Having the 13th largest market in the country as part of your negotiations could cause the numbers to be bumped a little. This is most likely wishful thinking, considering the state of our arena at the moment, but you never know.

Thanks to our poster Gene Hunt for originally posting this.