Why CBA is a prosperous league in deficit?

The summary of CBA for last season was released last week. The attendance rating broke the record, broadcast rating escalated dramatically. What is more important, 26 enterprises sponsored CBA, the highest of all. Those all bring financial benefit for the clubs. 20 clubs shared more than 10 million RMB dividend, which never exceeds 2 million before. It seems like each club has a productive year, however the bosses of Jiangsu and Chongqing team chose to transfer their teams to other holders at that time which makes everyone confused. But if you check out the financial situation, you may totally understand why.

The income of clubs majorly are formed with three parts: dividend, sponsorship and matchday income. Every team could get more than 10 million RMB from the Association, there is no big difference among the clubs. Only the sponsorship could widen the income gap. The team who could gain the most sponsor fee is Beijing Bucks, they got 30 million+ sponsorship fee from the sponsors in last season while most of the teams just had less than 20 million, some of the teams even only got 1-2 million due to their terrible performance. For the matchday income, the same reason still works. Teams like Xinjiang, Beijing, Guangdong benefited from ticket office and got more 10 million, 3-4 million for most of the teams, even 1-2 million for the bottom clubs. Therefore the big market teams like Beijing and Guangdong are able to get more 50 million for annual income, while some teams only rely on the dividend from the Association.

What makes the situation worse is the rising expenditure. Except for the renting, travel fee, the major outcome is the salary for the players. Only for the foreign players, the clubs have to pay more than 10 million on their salary every year. As the pay of the local players increased, the total amount of the annual salary is over 30 million. The clubs are advised to lower down the salary for the players to 50-55% of the club income. Almost every clubs in CBA cross the red line.

Most of the club are in deficit, even that, some of the moneys still will not give the club up. But after the transfer of Jiangsu and Chongqing, who knows what would come off following?