NBA

History and founding

The NBA's origin dates to June 6, 1946, when the Basketball Association of America was founded at the Commodore Hotel in New York City by owners of major ice-hockey arenas, including Walter A. Brown of Boston, who wanted to fill their buildings on nights when hockey was not scheduled. Maurice Podoloff, then president of the NHL's board of governors, became the league's first president. In 1949 the BAA absorbed the National Basketball League and changed its name to the National Basketball Association. The league has commemorated this 1946 founding as its official birth year, celebrating its 75th anniversary in the 2021–22 season. Over the following decades it absorbed four American Basketball Association franchises in 1976 and grew from a regional circuit into a global entertainment business.

Governance and structure

The NBA operates as a membership association. The 30 team ownership groups form the Board of Governors, which sets policy and votes on major matters, while the league office — headed by the Commissioner — handles day-to-day governance: scheduling, officiating, discipline, collective bargaining with the players' union, media-rights sales, sponsorship, licensing, and international business development. The Commissioner functions as the league office's chief executive, although the NBA does not use the title CEO for the role. The Deputy Commissioner and Chief Operating Officer is the second-ranking executive.

Commercial scale and properties

The NBA is one of the four major North American professional sports leagues and, by most measures, the most globally distributed US league. Its landmark 2024 media-rights agreements, reported at roughly $76 billion over 11 years beginning with the 2025–26 season, were awarded to Disney (ESPN/ABC), NBCUniversal (NBC and Peacock), and Amazon Prime Video, ending the previous TNT/ESPN era. The league's ecosystem includes the WNBA, the NBA G League, the NBA 2K League, the Basketball Africa League, NBA China, NBA TV, NBA.com, and the NBA App. It plays regular-season and preseason games internationally, including in Mexico, Europe, Australia, the Middle East, and Japan.

The NBA in the iGaming / sports-betting industry

The NBA's stance on gambling shifted decisively under Commissioner Adam Silver. In 2014 Silver published a New York Times op-ed titled "Legalize and Regulate Sports Betting," arguing for federal regulation rather than prohibition. After the Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act in 2018, the NBA moved aggressively into the commercial betting market. It signed official betting partnerships with DraftKings and FanDuel in the US and bet365 in North America, and launched regional partnerships in other markets. The league licenses official game data to operators and has a long-standing integrity and data relationship with Sportradar, in which it holds a minority equity stake. It also participates in the American Gaming Association's "Have A Game Plan. Bet Responsibly." campaign.

Betting integrity and prediction markets

The NBA enforces one of the most visible betting-integrity programs in American sports. In 2024 the league issued a lifetime ban to Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter for betting on NBA games and sharing confidential information with bettors. The NBA has also joined other major leagues in pushing back on event contracts offered by prediction-market operators such as Kalshi, arguing that game-based derivatives should be subject to the same integrity framework and regulatory oversight as regulated sports betting. The CFTC's proposed integrity regime drew criticism from the leagues, while the New York Attorney General separately sought $36 billion in damages against Kalshi; these developments were covered by iGaming Business, where the NBA was surfaced in this database's context.

Leadership

Commissioner Adam Silver has led the league since February 1, 2014, after a career that began with the NBA as special counsel in 1992 and included service as Deputy Commissioner and COO. Mark Tatum was promoted to Deputy Commissioner and Chief Operating Officer in 2014 and has been the league's second-ranking executive alongside Silver. The NBA's gaming and new-business strategy is led by Scott Kaufman-Ross, Senior Vice President and Head of Gaming & New Business Ventures, who has been the league's public-facing executive for sports betting and fantasy since the post-PASPA era. Other senior executives include Joe Dumars in basketball operations.