NBA Expansion Is On Hold

Evan Weiner

May 2, 2024

FILE - In this Oct. 8, 2019, file photo, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver speaks at a news conference before an NBA preseason basketball game between the Houston Rockets and the Toronto Raptors in Saitama, Japan. Silver is giving preseason state-of-the-league remarks Monday, Dec. 21, 2020, before opening night Tuesday, talking about how the league will handle the ongoing pandemic and the continued focus on social issues such as racial injustice. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

The NBA Commissioner Adam Silver says expansion will wait until a TV deal is done.

Investors in Las Vegas and Seattle who want to own a National Basketball Association franchise sometime in the future will have to wait a while for an NBA expansion franchise. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver does acknowledge that there could be expansion in the future but that will have to wait until Silver’s business completes its American television deal. That should happen sometime soon. Silver said that the NBA will appoint an expansion committee and that committee will make its recommendation. An expansion franchise will cost investors probably around $3 billion and more than likely there will be two franchises sold which means the 30 NBA owners could split $6 billion. That means every owner would get $200 million for doing nothing except expanding the business and probably lose a player or two to the new teams.

Silver has said that Las Vegas is “definitely on our list” for an expansion team. Seattle is probably on that list too. When Clayton Bennett took his Seattle SuperSonics business out of the city and moved it to Oklahoma City in 2008, it was not because Seattle was a bad market. The city would not build an arena for Bennett. Seattle now has an NBA state-of-the-art building available and the market has the kind of corporate money needed for a franchise and it is a solid TV market. Silver has also said Mexico City is “on our radar.” Nashville, Louisville, Vancouver and Montréal might also be on that list as well. “There aren’t private conversations happening right now,” Silver said. “No one has an inside track to getting a deal done, that at the time we will, with our committee, look at the cities that are interested, talk to the groups that are interested and then go from there.” NBA expansion is coming sooner than later.