The NBA released final accounting on the 2025-26 season, revealing basketball-related income was $11.68 billion, up from $10.25 billion the previous year. The BRI means players and owners will roughly split an escrow account of about $580 million set aside to make the math work in the shared-revenue system laid out in the collective bargaining agreement.

The CBA calls for players to receive 51% of BRI in the form of salaries and benefits, and the NBA withholds 10% of player salaries each year to ensure the revenue split is achieved.

Overall revenue for 2025-26 was dinged by the floundering regional sports network market, although the New York Knicks‘ run to the NBA title was a boon versus the small market matchup in the 2025 NBA Finals between the Thunder and Pacers. Additionally, this was the first season of the NBA’s new 11-year, $76 billion media contracts.

Total salaries and benefits for the 2025-26 season were $6.27 billion, above the 51% threshold. The escrow account was divided so 54.8% went to the owners and 45.2% to the players to reach the 51% mark; last season, more than 90% of the amount in escrow went back to owners.

Of the 10% of salaries in escrow, players received just under half back. For practical purposes, it means each player takes a 5.5% haircut on their negotiated salary for the 2025-26 season. A $20 million player would earn $18.9 million. Eric Pincus first posted about the escrow split on his Substack.

Stephen Curry gets dinged the most as the NBA’s highest-paid player last season at $59.8 million—he will forgo $3.3 million. (It’s worth noting, Curry also made an estimated $55 million off the court.) Other players taking big haircuts include Joel Embiid ($3 million) and Nikola Jokic ($3 million).

The NBA remains the most lucrative sports league in the world for players with an average salary north of $10 million; 60 players, nearly double the number in the NFL, earned at least $30 million last season.

The NBA’s escrow system, implemented during the 1999 CBA, has traditionally been set at between 8% and 10% of player compensation. For three straight seasons beginning with 2014-15, 100% of the escrow was returned to players along with a supplemental check as revenues surged and produced an uneven split.

The NHL has a similar escrow system that was often a major point of contention for players and agents, and the scales typically tipped toward the owners when final accounting was completed on hockey-related revenue. The escrow system cost NHL players at least 10% of their paychecks for six straight seasons ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the withholdings soared even higher. Yet, the hockey business is booming, and the league did not hold back any money during the 2025-26 season.

The NBA’s final accounting set a 2026-27 salary cap of $164.96 million, nearly identical to the $165 million projection from March. It marks a 6.7% gain from the $154.6 million for 2025-26. The early salary cap number for 2027-28 is $174 million, up 5.5%.