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 Sonics 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 governor 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” RSN 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–$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 been long prepared for a bid. When renovating ClimatePledge 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.