NBA Paves Way for Expansion to Seattle, Las Vegas

NBA expansion is officially on the table. 

After years of discussion, the NBA’s Board of Governors voted Wednesday in favor of the league exploring bids for expansion teams in Las Vegas and Seattle. 

The league now has the ability to receive and vet bids from potential ownership groups in those cities before determining whether to add those teams by the end of the year or later. The NBA said it will work with investment bank PJT Partners to evaluate expansion bids. 

“Today’s vote reflects our Board’s interest in exploring potential expansion to Las Vegas and Seattle – two markets with a long history of support for NBA basketball,” said NBA commissioner Adam Silver in a release. “We look forward to taking this next step and engaging with interested parties.”

Silver said at a press conference in New York City on Wednesday afternoon that “there’s absolutely a chance expansion may not happen” as the league evaluates the potential markets. The NBA could add one team, two, or none. 

“There is enormous instability in the world at the moment,” Silver said. “We may ultimately conclude for reasons completely out of our control that it’s not the right time to expand.” 

But he was largely bullish on expanding the league. He said he had no doubt that there was enough global basketball talent to add two teams, and that he wanted to give potential new ownership groups a “completely transparent process” as they look to decide on adding new teams by the end of the calendar year. Silver said expansion teams could begin play as soon as the 2028–29 season if the league goes into 2027 with clarity. 

Seattle was home to the SuperSonics from 1967 to 2008 before the team moved to Oklahoma City and rebranded as the Thunder. Las Vegas has been the NBA’s home for Summer League for more than 20 years and has hosted the NBA Cup final in recent years. 

“I’m very excited to see the NBA advance this process toward a Las Vegas expansion team. … I look forward to continuing conversations w/ Commissioner Silver and league officials to ensure this expansion delivers lasting benefits for the state of Nevada,” Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo said to The Athletic. 

Lombardo recently met with NBA legend Magic Johnson about owning an expansion team in Las Vegas. 

Silver first raised the idea of expansion during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the league was bleeding money. But over the years, his stance on expansion has wavered, citing the league’s “broken” regional sports network model, rising team valuations, and owners’ lack of interest in adding two more peers to split revenues with. 

“As I’ve said before, domestic expansion … is selling equity in this current league,” Silver said in December. “If you own 1/30 of this league, now you own 1/32 if you add two teams. So it’s a much more difficult economic analysis. In many ways, it requires predicting the future.”

He echoed those thoughts Wednesday, saying that “there are some owners who felt that we just frankly don’t need to expand.”

‘Strategic Benefit’ or Big Money?

Expansion bid fees for both cities are expected to fetch between $7 billion and $10 billion, with each of the 30 owners taking at least $200 million—and potentially double or triple that—if the league adds teams. 

Silver said Tuesday that “the market” would ultimately determine where those fees landed and dismissed the notion that the league was expanding as a mere money grab.

“There was nobody in the room saying, ‘I really want to expand right now because I can really use the money,’” Silver said. “It’s very much a strategic decision. The real reason ultimately to expand is because we see strategic benefit. And that’s why we’re particularly focused on Seattle and Las Vegas.”

Lakers star LeBron James recently said he isn’t interested in being part of an ownership group for a team in Las Vegas after years of publicly saying the opposite. Kraken owner Samantha Holloway has long said she will pursue an expansion bid to bring the Sonics back and formed an umbrella company on Monday to do so.

Holloway’s group has long been prepared for a bid. When renovating Climate Pledge Arena, the Sonics’ former home, to make it playable for the Kraken, the team added multiple NBA locker rooms in anticipation of expansion. Now they may finally be put to use. 

Anti-Tanking Moves Incoming

While Silver’s press conference was mostly about expansion, he said that the owners also discussed tanking at their meeting.

At his last press conference before the All-Star Game, Silver said tanking is worse than it’s been in years as teams jockey for position in what’s perceived as a loaded draft. His comments came days after he fined the Jazz and Pacers for benching or resting healthy players.

“Are we seeing behavior that is worse this year than we’ve seen in recent memory?” Silver said then. “Yes, is my view.” 

Silver said that owners were “unanimous” that rules need to change around tanking before next season. There will be a special Board of Governors meeting in May to vote on new rules. 

“We are going to fix it,” Silver said. “Full stop.”

The league has already changed lottery rules once in Silver’s tenure. In 2019, the NBA flattened the draft odds for the No. 1 pick for the bottom three teams to 14% each after the team with the worst record previously had a 25% chance at the top pick. It marked the fourth time the league had altered the lottery system in order to discourage tanking. 

“We need to do something more extreme than we did with those incremental changes those last four times,” Silver said. “There is an aspect of team-building that is a genuine rebuild. Rebuild with integrity. The problem we’re having these days is it’s become almost impossible to distinguish between a tank and a rebuild.”