Editor’s note

Everybody get up, it’s time to slam now. The NBA regular season tips off this week, so to get you ready for another year of high-flying jams and egregious flops, we’re here with a special edition all about the sport Zac Efron played unconvincingly in High School Musical. We’ll get into its explosive growth, the WNBA’s historic pay raises, the latest in b-ball fashion, and much more. Lace up your Nike Kobe 6 Protros, because it’s time for Basketball Brew.

pickup game

Victor Wembanyama during the 2027 FIBA World Cup European Qualifiers. Nicholas Muller/Getty Images

Basketball is on a bit of a fast break right now. New territory is being explored, new teams are being added, and new leagues are being created. Everything in the sport seems to be growing. Except for the players’ shorts. Those are smaller again.

Around the world

The American-born sport has especially taken off overseas. According to a Nielsen Sports survey conducted in 18 countries on behalf of FIBA, the world’s basketball governing body:

• Basketball is the world’s second-favorite sport, behind only soccer.
• Between 2019 and 2023, interest in the game among those surveyed grew from 68% to 74%.

When NBA teams took the court on last season’s opening night, the games featured 135 international players from 43 countries (and another planet, if there’s any truth to Victor Wembanyama’s “Alien” nickname). It’s no wonder the NBA has been trying to create a whole league overseas called NBA Europe, which, after some delay, is expected to launch in 2028, according to The Guardian.

Beyond the NBA

While the NBA is looking for growth overseas (and in Seattle and Vegas), there’s plenty more growth happening for the sport stateside outside the league.

The WNBA is growing, having just posted its best regular-season viewership since 2000, according to Sports Business Journal. And by 2030, the league said it will have 18 teams—six more than it had in 2024.

March Madness is expanding, too. Next year, college basketball plans to push the boundaries of printable brackets even further by cramming additional matchups into its men’s and women’s postseason tournaments, expanding the field from 68 to 76 teams. Pretty soon, we won’t need a regular season at all.

In another league: Upstart basketball leagues have been popping up in recent years, too. Rapper/actor Ice Cube’s three-on-three basketball league, BIG3, launched in 2017, and has reportedly drawn enough of an audience to be valued at around $290 million. And last month, Unrivaled, a three-on-three women’s league, raised funds at a $650 million valuation—almost double what it was a year ago.—BC

      

tipoff

Selcuk Acar/Getty Images

The 2026 NBA champions retained their starting lineup and will let you do the trading instead. Shares of the only basketball team in the world New York Knicks are expected to list on the New York Stock Exchange later this month under the ticker MSGK.

Why now? You’re getting the opportunity to call yourself a part-owner because the board of Madison Square Garden Sports recently decided to spin off its New York Knicks business from its New York Rangers business, which will trade separately as MSGR.

The move comes amid a blowout year for MSG’s soon-to-be-divided stock:

• The holding company’s market cap is nearing $10 billion, up more than 80% from the same time last year.
• The Knicks account for much of that value. In private market valuations for MSG’s teams—which are higher than public market counterparts—the Knicks are worth an estimated $11.75 billion, per JPMorgan, while the Rangers are worth an estimated $4.15 billion, per Sportico.

MSG’s move isn’t without controversy: One of the board members for the newly formed MSG Knickerbockers Corp., which will include the team, will be Isiah Thomas, a former Knicks head coach who was accused of sexual harassment. This has also been a year of heightened scrutiny for Knicks owner James Dolan, whose use of facial recognition technology at Madison Square Garden—as recently reported by Wired—drew protests from privacy advocates.—ML

      

Sponsored By State Street Investment Management

The S&P 500 captures the collective performance of the US economy—companies that shape the way we live, work, and connect with the world. With SPY, you can easily capture the index and its biggest innovators in a single trade.

Invest in athletic apparel trailblazers like Nike and Lululemon, and companies behind the biggest broadcasts like Walt Disney (ESPN) and Comcast (NBC)—and 496 other top US companies in just one move.

The future is yours to play for. Invest in it one smart play at a time with SPY, the original S&P 500 ETF.

gold in them there hills

Claudia Goldin receiving her Nobel Prize in 2023. Christine Olsson/Getty Images

Nobel Prize-winning economist Claudia Goldin says she doesn’t watch basketball—but even if she might think a slam dunk is a dipping sauce, she knows a wage gap when she sees one. Goldin used her expertise in gender pay disparities to advise the WNBA players union on salary negotiations last year, which helped the players secure an unprecedented 400% pay bump.

Goldin helped crunch the numbers behind WNBA players’ claim that their pay didn’t reflect the league’s rising popularity, which was turbocharged by superstars like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. She dug into the league’s TV ratings to argue that the WNBA’s average yearly paycheck of $127k in 2024—compared with the NBA’s $10 million average—constituted an “embarrassing” wage gap:

• Goldin calculated that the WNBA attracted ~30% as many monetizable broadcast viewers per player as the NBA, when accounting for the number of games and their length.
• She argued that since there were similar disparities in per-player game attendance, equitable WNBA salaries would be a third to a quarter of NBA paychecks on average.

Soon after, the league and the union signed a contract bumping players’ estimated average annual salary to $583,000, expected to rise to more than $1 million by 2032.

But what about profit? Goldin rejected the idea that the pay gap reflects the WNBA’s unprofitability, noting that the league’s costly expansion to new cities shows that investors see it as lucrative.

Other economists seconded Goldin’s findings and said that breaking down the exact revenue the NBA and WNBA contribute to their joint owners might show the WNBA isn’t losing money. They also pointed out that the NBA spends 50% of its revenue on player salaries, while WNBA paychecks represent a much smaller fraction.

Looking ahead…the WNBA is among the fastest-growing sports leagues in the US as viewership grew 17% last season, though some skeptics have questioned whether it can maintain this momentum.—SK

      

Sponsored By State Street Investment Management

Great teams rely on balance and depth. SPY brings the same discipline—keeping investors diversified in a single trade. With exposure to 500 US market leaders, SPY provides a core foundation for your portfolio.

Wherever you’re heading—building wealth, planning for the future, or just making smarter money moves—getting there starts here with SPY.