After finishing the greatest NFL career of all time, Tom Brady became a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders. The Raiders moved from Oakland to Las Vegas in 2020, and Brady’s bid to purchase a minority stake was approved by league owners in October 2024.
LeBron James is currently still authoring one of the greatest NBA careers of all time. (This is not the space for the LeBron vs. Michael Jordan debate.) This season is the last year of his contract with the Los Angeles Lakers. The jury is still out on whether he will return for an NBA-record 24th season or retire. Either way, he has breathing room to follow Brady’s pattern. Retire as a GOAT, and then become a minority owner in Vegas.
On Monday morning, ESPN’s Shams Charania broke the news that the NBA will hold a vote at next week’s board of governors meetings on whether to move forward with exploring the addition of two expansion teams. One in Seattle — long live the SuperSonics — and one in Las Vegas. If approved, those teams would join the league in 2028-29.
By Monday afternoon, this was a topic of discussion on FS1’s First Things First. Nick Wright pushed James as the most sensible owner in Vegas.
“This is not without precedent because the league helped out Michael Jordan in this regard,” Wright said. “If there is going to be a team in Vegas, and LeBron still wants to be a part of the ownership group, it is in the NBA’s best interest to grease those skids as much as possible.”
Wright continued, “I honestly should be more educated about how it worked with the Hornets and Jordan. For an expansion team, there’s gonna be a bunch of groups that all say, ‘Hey, we have the requisite fee,’ and then the league is gonna pick. I think the tie would go to the one that LeBron is in. It would be good for the league.”
Independent of Wright’s comments, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst confirmed that is exactly how the process will play out.
“I will tell you this: There are going to be multiple bidders offering lots of money for both of these markets, and I think because of the money, that will solve the other concerns,” Windhorst said on NBA Today. “You could have concerns about talent. You could offer concerns about dilution. You could offer concerns about an expansion draft. You could offer concerns about who might have to move to the Eastern Conference. All of those will be interesting. The panacea for all of it is the amount of money we’re talking about here.”
Most recently, the Lakers sold at a $10 billion valuation last June, and the Boston Celtics sold at a $6.1 billion valuation last August.
Way back in October 2022, the Lakers lost a preseason game to Phoenix at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Afterward, James used a postgame press conference to directly speak to NBA commissioner Adam Silver.
“It’s the best fan base in the world, and I would love to bring a team here at some point,” James said. “That would be amazing.”
In March 2021, James joined Fenway Sports Group as a partner and subsequently gained an ownership stake in the Boston Red Sox and Liverpool.