League boss Silver said Las Vegas is a city of interest but others could be in play for expansion slots.
The National Basketball Association will be adding franchises at some point before the end of the decade. The league needs to sign off on a new American television and streaming deal and then it will be evaluating potential cities for inclusion into the league. It seems that NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is in favor of putting a team in Las Vegas. The NBA already has a presence in Las Vegas running a summer league and there is at least one present day player LeBron James and one former player Shaquille O’Neal ready to be part of any ownership that presents itself to Silver and the NBA expansion committee. The NBA will probably add two teams to the mix with Seattle and its rich corporate market, decent sized TV market and an arena to use likely to get strong consideration.
But Silver said something else of interest that popped up on the NBA’s website that should be getting more attention. It was about the possibility of putting a team in Mexico City. Silver said Mexico City is “on our radar,” but putting a franchise in Mexico City is “probably not going to happen in the next wave of expansion.” That may mean that just one team could be entering the league but having an odd number of teams does impact scheduling and there are also billions of dollars in expansion fees heading to the 30 owners split up evenly. The Phoenix Suns franchise was sold for about $4 billion, so that probably would be the starting price of buying into the NBA. If there are two teams coming in, that will mean $8 billion split evenly between 30 owners meaning each owner could get about $267 million for doing nothing but welcoming two new teams in the fold. It could mean the NBA will not stop at 32 franchises.
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