The NBA landscape could significantly change in the coming years.
League expansion talks are heating up, and Minnesota Timberwolves ownership might soon change hands.
Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor has shopped the team since July 2020, with an estimated value of around $1.5 billion. The 79-year-old put the team up for sale twice before, in 2012 and 2015.
Taylor bought the Timberwolves for $88 million in 1994. He’ll make a profit no matter what, but a sale below $1.5 billion would be out of step with the surging valuations of the past decade. In October, the smaller market Utah Jazz sold for $1.66 billion.
While Taylor wants to keep the Timberwolves in Minnesota, the team has been floated as a relocation candidate, which could help push the price up for an ownership group eager to find a new market.
A Realigned League: Last month, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said that he believes expanding the league is its “manifest destiny.” New reports suggest the next two expansion teams could fetch $2.5 billion each in the near future.
The addition of two new teams could net existing teams about $160 million each, a much needed boost to revenues cratered by the pandemic.
Many speculated expansion or relocation markets are on the West Coast — most notably Seattle and Las Vegas.