LeBron James' net worth is expected to increase significantly in 2016 when NBA's new television multi-billion deal with ESPN and TNT takes into effect.
James decided to sign a two-year deal with the Cleveland Cavaliers this offseason because he wants to become a free agent again in 2016 - not because he wants to transfer to a new team, but because he knows that he could get a much lucrative deal before the 2016-17 NBA season.
According to Ken Berger of CBS Sports, the NBA salary cap could increase to as much as $91.2 million in the summer of 2016 because of the new nine-year, $24 billion TV deal with ESPN and TNT.
James is set to earn $20.6 million from the Cavaliers in the upcoming season. When the new TV deal takes into effect, sources indicated that James could get a starting salary of as much as $28.6 million in 2016. The amount is just an estimate, but analysts are convinced that it will be within that range.
James said in an interview with ESPN that they are expecting that negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement will run smoothly unlike the previous one, which led to a lockout.
"At the end of the day, we will negotiate," James said. "We know it's going to happen at some point because our deal is ending soon. We would love to do it sooner than later. We don't want to it to happen like it happened last time when we went into a lockout."
The four-time Most Valuable Player believes that they will have the leverage in the negotiation because of the new TV deal, saying that the owners will now have no right to say that they are losing money.
"The whole thing that went on with the last negotiation process was the owners were telling us that they were losing money. There's no way they can sit in front of us and tell us that right now after we continue to see teams selling for billions of dollars, being purchased for $200 million, for 550 million, $750 million, $2 billion," James said.
Oklahoma City Thunder superstar Kevin Durant echoed James' statement, saying in a Sporting News interview that superstars like James should get more money that what they are currently making because of the impact that they are making to their respective teams.
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