How much does it cost to win the championship in CBA

At 19:35 on May 15, the CBA final G1, the defending champion Liaoning Benxi Iron and Steel Co., Ltd., took the seat in the Liaoning Stadium against Xinjiang Guanghui. The popularity of the game is self-evident. It is reported that the highest price of 3880 yuan for the sofa seat of the ticket venue has been speculation to 14300 yuan.

Seven seasons have passed since Xinjiang Guanghui won the championship for the first time in 2016-2017, and CBA has produced three champion teams, namely Liaoning Benxi Steel and Guangdong South China Tiger, which won the same three championships, and Xinjiang Guanghui, which won the same three championships... Then the question arises, how much does it cost to build a CBA champion team?

The biggest part of CBA team's regular expenses is the team's salary and bonus. According to the CBA League Player Selection, Salary Cap, Employment and Transaction Management Regulations, the salary of local players is at least 150000 yuan/person/year and up to 6 million yuan/person/year. The total salary of domestic players cannot exceed 42 million yuan, while the total salary of foreign players cannot exceed 4.25 million dollars, about 30 million yuan.

In addition, player contracts generally have bonus and performance pay clauses, and the team's bonus in a season may easily exceed ten million yuan.

In addition to the player's salary, the team also bears the costs of training hall, accommodation, game accommodation and transportation, club staff salary, echelon operation, etc. In order to maintain the image, media public relations and publicity have begun to take a larger proportion in the budget.

The above is just the regular cost category of CBA team operation and maintenance. In order to achieve good results and even win the championship, it needs more money to introduce star players.

Take the rise of Xinjiang team as an example.

On September 26, 1999, the Sports Bureau of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Xinjiang Guanghui Industrial Investment (Group) Co., Ltd. jointly established Xinjiang Guanghui Flying Tiger Club. In 2000, the second level league, Xinjiang Guanghui, won all six games and was promoted to the first and second level league. In 2002, Xinjiang Guanghui defeated Beijing Aoshen and promoted to League A as the champion of League A and B one round ahead of schedule. In the 2008-2009 season, Xinjiang Guanghui reached the finals for the first time, and in the next two seasons, it reached the finals in succession, but it was defeated by the Guangdong South China Tiger three times.

In the 2016-2017 season, Xinjiang Guanghui won the first place in the regular season, and then eliminated Shandong and Liaoning successively in the playoffs. In the final, it defeated the old enemy Guangdong South China Tiger 4-0, lifted the first championship trophy in the history of the team, and became the sixth CBA championship team.

It took Xinjiang Guanghui 18 years to complete the championship puzzle bit by bit from building the team to winning the CBA championship.

On January 2, 2014, Guanghui recruited Zhou Qi from Liaoning, and the media revealed that Guanghui and Zhou Qi had signed a big contract worth 45 million yuan for eight years;

On September 21, 2014, Guanghui signed a contract with former Wizards and Nets NBA level insider Blache, whose annual salary rose to 2.5 million dollars;

On September 9, 2015, Guanghui reportedly signed Li Gen, the main champion of Beijing Jinyu, with a three-year contract of 36 million yuan;

On July 29, 2016, Guanghui signed the Champions League scoring champion Dalius Adams with an annual salary of 1.5 million dollars.

The four star players played a great role in winning the championship in Guanghui. In the fourth round of the finals in Guangdong, they contributed 84.4 points per game: Blache averaged 20.3 points and 6.3 rebounds per game, Zhou Qi averaged 14.8 points and 9.5 rebounds per game, and Li Gen averaged 14.5 points per game. Adams won the FMVP with his all-around performance of hitting 34.8 points and 4.8 rebounds per game, 7 assists and 3 steals per game. Heavy money attracted domestic aid and foreign aid to Taobao, making Xinjiang Guanghui the first CBA.

At the end of February last year, after Xinjiang Guanghui officials announced their withdrawal from the CBA League, Xinjiang Guanghui, who is determined to win the championship this season, signed six foreign aid at one go: Ed Davis, Dominic Jones, Travis Rice, Tanner Groves, Lindl Wikington and Mitch Crick.

Both Rice (New York Knicks, Milwaukee Bucks) and Wikington (Minnesota Timberwolves, Milwaukee Bucks) have fought in the NBA. Crick is Zhou Qi's leading teammate in Australia. Just to win the priority to renew the contract of 2011 NBA championship member, Jilin Team's super scoring Wang Qiongsi, Xinjiang Guanghui directly paid 500000 dollars. The salary cap of foreign players this season is 4.25 million dollars, which seems insufficient for Xinjiang Guanghui

Different from the Liaoning team, which has 18 players registered, 15 domestic players and 13 players from the province (Cong Mingchen from Yichun, Heilongjiang Province, and Lu Zijie from Guangzhou, Guangdong Province), Xinjiang Guanghui has players from all over the world.

Among the 19 players registered in the club, in addition to the six Xinjiang players led by Abdul Salam, the remaining 10 players from other provinces in China are from nine provinces, including Heilongjiang, Shandong, Henan, Hebei, Zhejiang, and Sichuan. Even the three foreign aid players retained are from three countries (the United States, Canada, and Australia).

This season, Xinjiang Guanghui, which is not short of money, has introduced 6 foreign aid, Zhao Rui, Wu Guanxi, Li Yanzhe and Wang Quanze, as many as 10 new recruits. Zhao Rui got a top salary of 6 million yuan when he came to Xinjiang, and Wu Guanxi's transfer fee was reported to be 10 million yuan, with an annual salary of 5.5 million yuan... It's natural to be willing to spend money. This season, Jones became the third regular season player in CBA. Zhao Rui had the highest number of votes in the northern ticket area of the CBA All Star Game, and domestic and foreign reinforcements helped Xinjiang Guanghui to enter the playoffs again after two seasons.

According to Xinjiang Guanghui, the club has invested 2.31 billion yuan in 24 years since its establishment, with an average investment of nearly 100 million yuan a year.

In 2017, when Xinjiang Guanghui Basketball Club won the first championship in history, it invested 162.5 million yuan, generated 43.35 million yuan of operating revenue, and recorded negative revenue and expenditure of 119 million yuan.

Before CBA issued the salary restriction order, the star player Zhou Qi received 49516031.52 yuan from Guanghui Club in two seasons (2019-2020 season and 2020-2021 season), including 39888888.30 yuan of fixed salary and 9627143.22 yuan of victory fee+nutrition purchased by the United States. In order to retain the local core of Abedu Salamu, Xinjiang Guanghui once offered an annual salary of 12 million yuan.

An open fact is that Xinjiang Guanghui Industrial Investment (Group) Co., Ltd. is a frequent customer in the list of China's top 500 private enterprises (ranking 31st in the country in 2023), with an annual revenue of 214.603 billion yuan. It is a giant private enterprise in northwest China. In 2023, it paid nearly 10 billion yuan in taxes, which can be regarded as a true Class A taxpayer. Guanghui Group's daily revenue is 588 million yuan, with an average hourly revenue of 24.5 million yuan, which can meet the annual budget in about four or five hours, even in less than two games.

Compared with Xinjiang Guanghui, Liaoning Hengye Group Co., Ltd., the investor of Liaoning Benxi Steel, is an enterprise with a registered capital of 50 million yuan, and its Liaoning Hengye Auto New Material Co., Ltd. ranks 32nd among the top 100 private enterprises in Liaoning in 2020. To some extent, the battle between Xinjiang Guanghui and Liaoning Benxi Steel in the final is more like the battle between CBA's first golden basketball club and CBA's old founding club.

Let's take a look at another old strong team, Guangdong South China Tigers. In 2023, the investor Guangdong Hongyuan Group achieved a revenue of 352 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 62.82%, and the annual net profit was 66.09 million yuan. Naturally, it is difficult to compare with Guanghui Group, which has an annual net profit of 4.406 billion yuan.

However, among the three teams competing for supremacy, Guangdong Hongyuan has the best commercial value and business operation. On September 16, 2020, Yunnan Dayi Tea Group was named Guangdong Hongyuan Men's Basketball Team with a total cost of 100 million yuan in three years. After the expiration of the three-year contract, GAC Group spent a lot of money to win the title of Guangdong Men's Basketball Team. It is reported that the naming fee is 40 million yuan, almost twice the annual naming fee of Shenyang Sansheng Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., a Liaoning basketball company.

In addition, Zhu Fangyu, the general manager of the club, signed Waters, who performed well in the World Cup, with only 300000 dollars. The 38 year old veteran Wims, who returned to the team, earned only 200000 dollars a year. Even Jordan Bell, the highest paid player, earned only 800000 dollars a year. The sum of the salaries of the three foreign aid players was almost half of the salary of Fuge, the junior foreign aid of Liaoning Team (2.4 million dollars a year), No luxury tax at all.

In terms of revenue, Xinjiang Guanghui, which is rich and powerful, adopts the internal operation mode. Taking the 2018-2019 season as an example, Guanghui Automobile (600297, SH) announced that the company plans to invest 30 million yuan to be named Xinjiang Professional Basketball Team 2018-2019 season. At the same time, a reward of no more than 30 million yuan will be given according to the achievements of Xinjiang Guanghui. Specifically, 10 million yuan will be awarded for entering the top four, and an additional 20 million yuan will be awarded for winning the championship. That season, Xinjiang Guanghui reached the finals all the way, but finally lost to Guangdong Hongyuan. Guanghui men's basketball team received 40 million yuan of sponsorship from Guanghui Auto.

Come to see the ball market again. The ball market in Guanghui, Xinjiang has always been very good. The attendance rate often exceeds 97%, ranking first in the country. And the home court of Liaoning Team is also hard to find.

As early as 13 years ago in the 2010-2011 season, the ticket income of Guanghui Men's Basketball Team, which was defeated by Guangdong and ranked second in the finals, reached 16.5 million yuan a year alone. This season, Xinjiang reached the finals, and the season ticket income may reach a new high.

Compared with the lowest 380 yuan and the highest 3880 yuan of Liaoning men's basketball team, the lowest 280 yuan and the highest 3800 yuan of the home court ticket price of the finals announced by Xinjiang Guanghui are relatively friendly. It is estimated that the box office revenue of the home court of the finals alone will exceed ten million yuan.

In addition, the CBA League's bonus to each team can generally reach 20-30 million yuan and the provincial and municipal governments' cash rewards of tens of millions of yuan after the championship, and the annual revenue will conservatively reach 120 million yuan (in 2022, Guangzhou Longshi ranked eighth, with the annual revenue of 65.64 million yuan).

In 2023, CBA will issue an upgraded salary cap, with the local "salary cap" of each club being capped at 42 million yuan, the top salary of a single domestic player being adjusted to 6 million yuan, and the "salary cap" of club foreign aid being capped at 4.25 million dollars (about 30.7 million yuan). If the upper limit is stuck, the annual salary alone will be 72.7 million yuan.

Of course, taking Liaoning team as an example, the salary expenditure of domestic players is not so high. According to the media, the salary of Liaoning team is Zhao Jiwei 6 million, Guo Allen 6 million, Fu Hao 3 million, Han Dejun 3 million, Li Xiaoxu 3 million, Cong Mingchen 2 million, Zhang Zhenlin 1.5 million, Zhou Juncheng 600000, Yan Handqi 500000, Yu Zechen 500000, Liu Yanyu 400000, Zhao Zhizhou 300000, Zhang Junhao 200000 Li Huyi, Lu Zijie, 200000, and the salary of domestic players is about 27.4 million yuan.

Compared with Xinjiang Guanghui, Liaoning Club has been very restrained in salary. In addition, the operating costs of the coaching team and the club, including the lease, travel, accommodation, youth team and media publicity of the stadium and training ground, are not a small amount.

With reference to the annual investment of Guangzhou Longshi, the middle and upper reaches team, in 2022, the annual investment is 91.73 million yuan, and that of Xinjiang, the champion team in 2017, 162.5 million yuan. The budget of the current CBA club, which aims to win the championship, is estimated to be no less than 120 million yuan. (Nanshan South)