The nba is one of the most popular sports in the world. It has become even more popular in recent years with the advent of online gambling and streaming services.
In addition to television revenue, the NBA also generates significant income from merchandise sales and international licensing agreements. The league also has a unique revenue-sharing system where teams share their non-basketball related revenues with other teams. The NBA is the only major American professional sports league that does this.
In order to compete with other professional sports leagues around the world, the NBA has adopted a variety of business practices that it believes will help it attract and retain top talent. These include instituting a salary cap and requiring players to sign multi-year contracts.
A team is allowed to have a maximum of 15 active players on its roster. This includes the starting five players who are chosen by a combination of fan, media and player voting. The two leading vote-getters — usually frontcourt and backcourt stars — serve as team captains and choose their teammates. The other seven starters are selected by the coaches of each conference.
There are thirty teams in the nba, divided into two conferences of three divisions each with five teams. This divisional alignment was introduced in the 2004-05 NBA season. The asterisk indicates franchise moves: the Fort Wayne Pistons, Minneapolis Lakers and Rochester Royals joined the NBA (BAA) in 1948, while the Syracuse Nationals and Milwaukee Hawks were added following the merger of the BAA with the NBL.
The nba playoffs are best-of-seven series. Each round features the top seed playing the lowest-seeded team (i.e., the first-seeded Lakers face the eighth-seeded Philadelphia 76ers). Throughout the playoffs, teams are awarded home-court advantage.
Since the 1999-2000 season, the nba has been dominated by two teams: the Los Angeles Lakers and San Antonio Spurs. The Spurs won their first championship in 1999 and their second in 2003, sandwiched in between the Lakers’ two consecutive titles.
The nba’s current labor agreement keeps teams within certain parameters, preventing super teams from dominating the league. This has helped keep the NBA a competitive league with a large number of talented teams. It has also made the games more attractive to a broader audience outside of the United States, which may have long-term benefits for the league’s financial health. In addition to the salary cap, a large percentage of the NBA’s revenue is shared among all teams through the revenue-sharing program. This enables the NBA to distribute revenue more evenly between smaller and larger market franchises, as well as address issues in local markets where it is difficult to build and sustain a profitable NBA team. As the popularity of the nba continues to grow, it is likely that the league will continue to adapt its business models to stay ahead of the competition. The growth of the nba into Asia and elsewhere is part of this effort.