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The Growth of the NBA: Salary & Viewership Over Time
Three decades of compounding growth, told through salaries and the Finals audience.
by Hoops Data Staff · Published June 29, 2026
The NBA of today barely resembles the league of 1990, not in style, and certainly not in dollars. This piece traces three decades of growth through the numbers the league cares about most: average and total player salaries, and the audience tuning in for the Finals.
The charts below follow salaries climbing from millions into the hundreds of millions, set against a viewership story that's more nuanced than the money. Together they tell a story of sustained, compounding growth.
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