Two of America’s largest sports leagues have demonstrated in the last week that they can not only weather the tough financial climate, but are actually thriving in it.
The NBA, fresh from the resolution of a labour dispute which had threatened an entire season – the league will now commence on Christmas day following a five-month lockout – has announced five major sponsorship deals within the last week. The league has renewed existing deals for the brands Budweiser, Gatorade and Autotrader.com, each reportedly earning it significantly higher revenues than under the existing deals. A new lucrative arrangement allowing Under Armour to use official NBA uniforms in its advertising has also been announced. And a further deal, which sees Sprint replacing T-mobile as the official wireless sponsor, has reportedly netted the league $45m over a four-year term – an 80% increase on the T-Mobile deal.
Meanwhile, the NFL has announced 9-year extensions to its domestic broadcast contracts for Sunday games with CBS, Fox and NBC. The deals are worth over $3bn per season to the league, representing a 63% increase on the existing arrangements.
