SME clarifies NCT’s contract status, saying they have members signed for at least 10 years

With the rumors surrounding BLACKPINK‘s contracts swirling around, questions about NCT‘s status (who debuted in 2016 as well) has apparently reached SM Entertainment, as the company addressed the issue. Ironically, they may have pissed fans off even more, as they revealed that there’s no contract concerns because they simply signed them to longer ones.

When we signed NCT, the contract’s terms were longer than usual because it had stipulations taking into account the members’ military service as well as overseas promotions. Although the exact date is different for each member, there are no members whose contract ends this year. All of the members’ contracts end in the year after next.

2025 would make 10 years.

So basically they have the same extended contracts as EXO did, where the supposed limit is seven years due to the Fair Trade Commission, but there are exceptions for “overseas promotion”, military service, pregnancy, and things of that nature. Thus, like EXO, NCT legally (apparently) got their contracts extended to at least 10 years.

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Quite frankly, I’m not sure how it’s sane to extend contracts for non-Korean members of the group for three years and Korean members by five years (12 years, man, lol) just for overseas and military, but that seems to be the case here, and they got the FTC to sign off on this.

Thus, NCT don’t have contract concerns in that sense, though based on history it seems like at least a couple member will question things after finding out how badly they’re being fucked over, and it’s probably not a coincidence that this mostly happens under SME.