NBA, NBPA, and 2K Announce 7-Year, $1.1 Billion Partnership Extension

January 15, 2019

The NBA and 2K Games have been working with one another for the past 20 years, bringing us the most successful basketball video game series. It has gone on to sell millions of copies, after all. Now 2K, NBA, and NBPA (National Basketball Players Association) have announced that they will continue their partnership for the next seven years. This likely means they will very likely be bringing us more NBA 2K games. This partnership deal is reportedly worth $1.1 billion.

The continuation of their partnership comes after the NBA 2K series dominated sales charts year after year, even reaching 86 million copies sold across all the games. Take-Two Interactive, the owner of 2K, said it is proud to continue working with the NBA and NBPA and wants to continue to expand on its audience.

Strauss Zelnick, Chairman and CEO of Take-Two said:

The NBA has been an outstanding partner throughout the history of the NBA 2K franchise, contributing significantly to its unparalleled success and the ability to grow its audience around the world across a myriad of platforms and offerings. We’re thrilled to be in business with Adam and the entire team at the NBA, and enter into the longest-ever partnership extension between our organizations. Together, we’re confident that we will continue to find new and innovative ways to captivate and engage basketball fans, and expand further the success of the NBA 2K brand.

This partnership also includes NBA 2K Online and NBA 2K Online 2, two games that have over 40 million registered users and taking the lead in China as the number one PC sports game. NBA 2K19 was also a success story, reaching 10 million units sold.

With this year being the 20th anniversary of the series, we may get something special when NBA 2k20 releases in September 2019.

What do you make of this continued partnership? It seems like it’s a good call, considering how well it’s worked out after the past two decades. Let us know in the comments!

[Source: Operation Sports]