The NBA has reached another major financial milestone.
According to data compiled by Sports Value, the league is projected to generate approximately $14.3 billion in revenue, surpassing Major League Baseball for the first time and moving into second place among the world’s richest sports leagues by annual revenue. Only the NFL remains ahead, with total revenue above $23 billion.
The jump is significant. Sports Value estimates that the NBA generated roughly $12.5 billion a year earlier, meaning revenue has increased by around 14 percent. MLB, by comparison, is projected at approximately $11.8 billion.
The biggest driver is the NBA’s new media-rights cycle. The league’s 11-year agreements with Disney, NBCUniversal and Amazon are worth roughly $76 billion in total, dramatically increasing annual national-media revenue. Sports Value estimates media-rights income at close to $7 billion per year, with another roughly $4 billion coming from game-day revenue and $1.9 billion from sponsorships.
But what makes the NBA different from the other major North American leagues is how aggressively its business has expanded beyond the United States and Canada.
Basketball’s international footprint has become central to the league’s identity. Opening-night rosters for the 2025-26 season featured a record 135 international players from 43 countries and six continents, including a record 71 European players. Every NBA team had at least one international player.
That international talent pool has helped create global stars such as Nikola Jokić, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Luka Dončić, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Victor Wembanyama, giving the NBA recognizable faces across Europe, Africa, Canada and other major basketball markets. The league has also continued staging regular-season games outside North America and is now actively exploring a larger long-term presence in Europe.
That global reach is one of the main reasons basketball has become uniquely valuable among American sports.
The NFL remains in a different financial category. Its total revenue has surpassed $23 billion, supported by enormous domestic television contracts, sponsorships and game-day income. The league also distributed approximately $14.5 billion in shared national revenue in 2025 alone.
But the NBA’s growth curve is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
A decade ago, baseball comfortably sat ahead of basketball financially. Now the NBA has passed MLB while continuing to add international players, global sponsors, overseas games and new commercial markets.
The numbers also explain why franchise valuations, expansion fees, salaries and the salary cap continue to rise so aggressively. More money is flowing into the league from television, sponsorships, ticket sales and global partnerships than ever before.
The NFL remains No. 1.
But at roughly $14.3 billion in annual revenue, the NBA has now established itself as the clear financial No. 2 – and unlike most major American leagues, much of its remaining growth potential lies far beyond the United States.
