But Chad Lewis, senior director at Fitch Ratings, told me this afternoon that Fitch does not currently have plans to downgrade the NBA’s credit rating.”Our current view is this is a short-term pandemic, so we have no immediate plans to cut ratings,” Lewis told me. That’s good news for NBA owners, who have no ticket or stadium revenue coming in yet are paying staffs and players. The NBA has a debt limit of $275 million per team secured against the franchise. These forecast leverage metrics for the NBA are higher than historical levels because of the increased borrowing, but the NBA’s leverage is consistent with other A category ratings for the NFL and MLB. I couldn’t pin Lewis down on whether or not a cancellation of the NBA postseason would mean the NBA’s credit rating would be lowered.

Source: Forbes March 17, 2020 22:07 UTC