Las Vegas and Seattle are the favorites to land expansion franchises.
National Basketball Association Commissioner Adam Silver continues to tease people in Seattle and in Las Vegas saying expansion is coming, eventually. Just when, well eventually. Silver continues to push the line, be patient it will eventually happen. The NBA needed to take care of two issues before it would consider expansion. It needed a new American television deal and also a new collective bargaining agreement with its players. Both problems have been solved. But there has been no movement in the expansion direction, however Silver continues the tease. “We have an NBA Board Meeting in July in Las Vegas. Expansion will be on the agenda to discuss with full ownership for the 30 teams. We will have that opportunity early this summer to talk to all of the different ownership groups in the NBA and get a sense. Expansion over time makes sense, precise timing, we need to work on that.”
The NBA is absolutely familiar with the two leading expansion candidates, Seattle and Las Vegas. The NBA has an interest in Mexico City as well but geopolitics may get in the way of a United States sports league putting a franchise in Mexico. Silver has even mentioned Vancouver as a possible expansion city but given the United States present relationship with Canada there could be significant hurdles in putting a franchise in Canada or in Mexico. Silver does not have a venue problem in Las Vegas or Seattle. There is an available arena in Las Vegas and there could be a new venue built for an NBA franchise. Seattle politicians really did not want to spend money for a new venue for the NBA SuperSonics in 2006 and 2007. Seattle now has a venue. The SuperSonics ownership took the business to Oklahoma City in 2008. NBA expansion is creeping at a snail’s pace.
Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191
Evan can be reached at evan_weiner@hotmail.com
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