Today the NBA, as a whole, generates more than eight billion U.S. dollars in revenue per season, an average per team of around 292 million U.S. dollars in the 2018/19 season. The New York Knicks, the Golden State Warriors, and the Los Angeles Lakers are the only teams with more than 400 million U.S. dollars in annual revenue. All other teams in the NBA generated more than 200 million U.S. dollars in revenue in the 2018/19 season.
The New York Knicks are the most valuable franchise of the league with a total value of 4.6 billion U.S. dollars. All other NBA franchises have a value of at least 1.3 billion U.S. dollars or more. The least valuable franchise is the Memphis Grizzlies with a value of 1.3 billion U.S. dollars. On average, NBA franchises have an estimated value of almost 1.87 billion U.S. dollars. In comparison, the average franchise value in the NFL was 2.86 billion U.S. dollars, in the MLB 1.78 billion U.S. dollars, and in the NHL 667 million U.S. dollars. During the regular season, a league wide total of 1,230 games are played, with each team playing 82 games. The average regular season home attendance in the league was 17,750 during the 2019/20 season.
The WNBA is the premier league for women's basketball in the United States, comprising 12 teams split into Eastern and Western conferences. The highest paid player in the league in 2019 was Phoenix Mercury's DeWanna Bonner. The forward, who at the end of the season moved to the Eastern Conference with Connecticut Sun, took home 127,500 U.S. dollars for her season's work.
