NBA to explore expansion for first time in 20 years

New York: The NBA has officially begun the process to expand for the first time in more than two decades.

The basketball league’s board of governors, which includes one representative from each of the NBA’s 30 teams, tasked the league office with doing “an in-depth analysis of all the issues around expansion both economic and non-economic,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in a news conference on Tuesday. 

The NBA last expanded in 2004 when a franchise in Charlotte, North Carolina, now called the Hornets, started play.

The move is not a surprise. Silver had long said the league would pursue expansion after inking new media and labor contracts. A deal with the players’ union came in 2023, followed by media rights the following year. 

“Nothing has been predetermined one way or the other, and without any specific time line. We’re going to be as thorough as possible and look at all the potential issues,” Silver added.

NBA team values have boomed in recent years, making adding teams even more lucrative for the league’s current owners, who evenly share expansion fees. League sources said last year that they expected those fees to be as much as $5 billion, but that was before the Boston Celtics were acquired for $6.1 billion in March and the Los Angeles Lakers were sold in June at a $10 billion valuation.

Las Vegas and Seattle are considered to be the favorite cities for expansion. Las Vegas already has strong ties to the league, including hosting its summer league tournament. Seattle had an NBA team called the Supersonics until the club was moved to Oklahoma City in 2008 and renamed the Thunder.

In Las Vegas, interested parties include a consortium containing Fenway Sports Group, RedBird Capital Partners and LeBron James. Bill Foley, owner of the NHL’s Las Vegas Golden Knights, is leading an effort, and so is Avenue Capital’s Marc Lasry. 

Samantha Holloway is seen as Seattle’s best chance to bring back the NBA. She is the co-owner of the NHL’s Seattle Kraken, which plays in an arena that opened in 2021, and has expressed interest in an expansion team.

“We have been public that Climate Pledge Arena is ready. It does host basketball now. It’s built for an NBA team when the NBA feels ready to expand, the fans here are obviously ready,” Holloway said Tuesday at the Bloomberg Green Festival in Seattle. “But we’re getting our ducks in a row. And then we’ll be patient because it may happen soon, it may happen later.”