The NBA Board of Governors is expected to hold its first vote on potential expansion to Las Vegas and Seattle at meetings later this month, ESPN reported on Monday.
SEATTLE — The NBA Board of Governors may vote as soon as next week to explore adding expansion teams in Las Vegas and Seattle, according to a report from ESPN.
The league would consider adding the two franchises for the 2028-29 season, ESPN’s Shams Charania reported on Monday.
The cost of the teams is expected to be in the range of $7-10 billion, ESPN said.
This would be the first step in the expansion, with the vote allowing the league to move forward with a bidding process for the teams. The Board of Governors would then cast a vote later in the year to finalize the expansion.
The Board of Governors meetings will take place March 24-25. For any of the upcoming expansion votes to pass, 23 of the 30 governors must vote in favor.
If approved, Seattle would see an NBA team return two decades after the SuperSonics relocated to Oklahoma City and became the Thunder. The Sonics played in Seattle from 1967 to 2008.
That departure centered around a dispute over the KeyArena lease, a facility that was essentially rebuilt after extensive renovations, and is now home to the 2021 NHL expansion team Kraken, the Seattle Storm and PWHL team the Seattle Torrent, in its first season.
As part of the settlement allowing the team to break its lease in Seattle early to move, the city kept the team name, colors and history.
Another Seattle team is expected to change ownership in the near future. The estate of the late Seattle Seahawks owner Paul Allen announced the team was going up for sale following their Super Bowl win.