Owners hold
The NBA Constitution
A Board of Governors, one vote per franchise. Three-quarters
supermajority protection before anyone joins the club or buys a team. A 75-mile territorial
monopoly each. Court review waived, internally — and Article 43 declares the
entire rulebook enforceable by members alone.
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Players hold
A 676-page Collective Bargaining Agreement
A guaranteed 49–51% of Basketball Related Income, enforced
by escrow and an annual audit. Guaranteed contracts. An arbitration system. Won by
organizing: a pension standoff fifteen minutes before the 1964 All-Star broadcast, finished
by a strike threat in 1967.
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Networks hold
Eleven-year, $76-billion contracts
Exclusivity clauses, Finals rights, escalators — and when the
league tried to leave one partner behind in 2024, that partner sued within days and
settled for a decade of consideration. Contracts get respected when the counterparty can
fight.
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Sponsors & licensees hold
Negotiated commercial agreements
A twelve-year Nike partnership. Roughly $300M a year in jersey-patch
deals. An exclusive betting-data contract worth over a billion dollars. Every one of them
papered, priced, and enforceable.
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Host cities hold
Thirty separate negotiations
No league-wide standard governs how franchises obtain public capital.
The constitution’s relocation rules list nine factors — none mentions public
arena investment or outstanding public debt — the vote is a simple majority
(lower than the bar to sell a team), the relocation fee goes to the league — none of
it to the city — and Association policy bars cities from ever owning a piece of the
team. Whatever a city fails
to write into its lease before the money moves, it never gets.
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Fans hold
Terms of use
A ticket is, in the league’s standard documents, a revocable
license. The league’s website binds you to arbitration, a class-action waiver, and
a jury-trial waiver, amendable at any time by posting. The one place the rulebook mentions
fan support — first among the relocation factors — sits inside a document fans
are contractually barred from invoking.