• by Wayne Friedman , May 24, 2023

In conjunction with higher national TV advertising spend and strong viewership, overall brand sponsorship with individual local NBA teams continues to rise: Deal-making is up 10.5% to $1.4 billion, this past season, according to SponsorUnited.

The league has inked 3.5% more total sponsorship deals -- now at 2,430 -- for all its teams.

Major high-growth marketing categories include financial, retail, and sports wagering. At the same time, fewer brand deals were made in the categories of automotive and consumer products.

Financial brands -- still the dominant category -- rose 9% to $289 million. Other major marketing areas: Technology brands slipped 1% to $96 million; healthcare up 7% to $92 million, with beverage/alcohol spending gaining $79 million.

Major new NBA sponsors for teams include PepsiCo’s new Starry beverage and Tequila brands Astral, CasaNoble, and Herradura.

According to the report, credit goes to NBA players promoting their sport on social media -- where players average almost 95,000 in total engagement per deal.

SponsorUnited says this is over two-and-a-half times more than the average of a major professional sport athlete.

High-profile NBA stars Stephen Curry and Giannis Antetokounmpo are heavy NBA social-media providers.

This all happened, according to a report, while the deal went without an official fast-food brand or quick-service restaurant, for the first time in 14 years.

SponsorUnited's NBA analysis comes from more than 2,800 brands and 240 athletes' social media efforts between September 2022 and April 2023.

Since last October through May 23, national TV advertising revenues are up 16% for all NBA basketball programming to $1.49 billion according to iSpot.tv. The league has amassed 70.8 billion impressions, up over 10 billion impressions from a year ago (59.4 billion).