The NBA is reporting a $93 million payroll short fall as the salary cap is set to rise to $92 million, reports say.
The league recently reported that the 2016-17 salary cap will climb to $92 million with a luxury tax threshold reaching to $11 million.
According to Basketball Insiders, the teams will be obligated to pay 90 percent of the salary floor which amounts to $82.8 million of the $92 million salary gap.
The current salary cap amounts to $70 million per team for the 2015-2016 season.
The NBA thinks it will fall short of the goal by about $12.5 million per team and will have to pay $375 million out of the wages held in escrow. The league further says that if one of the two parties doesn’t opt out of the deal, the amount will climb to $107 million with a $127 million luxury tax threshold by 2017.
The league also estimates that some teams will pay $121 million on luxury taxes this year, half of which will go into the revenue sharing plan.
With costs rising the NBA is looking to new sources of revenue and is hoping to expand games into foreign markets such as China to increase the bottom line.
The payroll news also comes on the heels of the decision by league owners to allow advertising on jerseys with a three-year, pilot program starting in the 2017 season.
The decision to allow advertising on jerseys came as part of a massive $24 billion new media deal for the 2017 season.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com
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