The report is fortified by data from over 6,000 NBA sponsorship and media deals from the 2021-22 NBA season. It highlights the impact of team revenue in addition to a comprehensive dive into marketing and partnerships across the league, all 30 teams, players, categories, assets, and brands.

Key findings from the report include:

• NBA teams surpassed $1.2B in sponsorship revenues, achieving 50% growth over the 2020-21 season. Nearing $450M in additional spending on team sponsorships.
• Revenue was driven by a significant increase in spending across the Sports Betting and Financial categories, and the emergence of Cryptocurrency. Socios.com, which had no NBA deals in 2020-21, launched 28 individual deals this season.
• NBA players continue to expand as a platform for brands, as they saw a 46% increase in deals from the prior year. Player endorsements now represent 30% of total NBA brand deals.
• Five of the top six most searched companies on the SponsorUnited platform by NBA executives were Cryptocurrency brands (FTX, Crypto.com, Coinbase, Voyager, Ankr). Cryptocurrency had a higher search volume than the entire Alcohol category. In fact, not one Alcohol brand ranked within the top 50 most searched brands.
• Performance on the court had the most direct association with fan interest.Playoff-eligible teams had an increase in social following during the season that was 150% greater than non-playoff teams.
• Despite missing the playoffs in his 19^th season, LeBron James’ social following saw a massive increase of 22M new followers, which was more than 25 individual NBA teams. In fact, he alone has more Instagram followers than every NBA team’s total social following across Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok.

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