The league’s board of governors met this week and voted to explore bids and applicants for teams exclusively in those two cities, beginning the process for its first expansion in more than two decades. Bids are expected to be in the range of $7 billion to $10 billion per franchise.
Commissioner Adam Silver had previously described this year as a target for a decision on expansion of the 30-team league, which last added a new franchise in 2004. The league will now evaluate bids over the coming months.
“Today’s vote reflects our Board’s interest in exploring potential expansion to Las Vegas and Seattle, two markets with a long history of supporting NBA basketball,” Silver said in a statement Wednesday. “We look forward to taking the next step and engaging with stakeholders.”
Wait, the NBA has new teams?
Soon you will be able to do it. The NBA board of governors voted this week to approve a formal exploration of adding teams in Seattle and Las Vegas. The league is reportedly targeting the 2028-29 season to debut.
Because?
These markets appear mature: large, sports-mad urban areas with viable stadiums. But mainly because for billionaires, too much is never enough. The NBA has had 30 teams since the Charlotte Bobcats arrived in 2004. Since then, the value of franchises and media rights has skyrocketed and the Los Angeles Lakers were sold last year for a record $10 billion, giving new impetus to a process the league has been considering for some years. According to ESPN, the NBA could demand an expansion fee of between $7 billion and $10 billion per team, which would put about $500 million into the pockets of the owners of each current franchise.
Isn’t it outrageously expensive?
Yeah! But it could still be a good deal.
The NBA has a history of failed and relocated franchises, including in Seattle and nearby Vancouver. These days, though, team valuations are only going up, fueled by the league’s 11-year, $77 billion media deals that began this season. In 2025, the average team was valued at $5.5 billion, more than double the estimate three years earlier, according to Sportico. The least valuable team, the Memphis Grizzlies, was estimated at $4 billion. So, it’s a solid bet even at such an eye-watering price. In 1966, the original Seattle SuperSonics ownership group paid an expansion fee of $1.75 million, the equivalent of $17 million in today’s money.
How did Las Vegas go from zero men’s major league teams to four?
In the past, Las Vegas’ reputation as a seedy, tourist-oriented city and the leagues’ previous anti-gambling stances worked against it. It was seen as a venue for boxing, wrestling and other one-off exhibition-type events designed to fill hotel rooms, rather than a venue for numerous regular-season games that rely on a committed local fan base.
But now sports are turning to legal betting, the metropolitan area’s population has skyrocketed to around 2.5 million and the city has modern venues. The first major professional team, the Golden Knights, found instant success when they joined the NHL in 2017. The NFL’s Raiders moved from Oakland in 2020 and the MLB’s A’s plan to take the same path in 2028. The NBA has hosted its summer league in Las Vegas since 2004, as well as Cup games, so it is familiar with the city.
Who would own the equipment?
Not LeBron James. Although the Lakers megastar has previously expressed his desire to own a team in Las Vegas, he firmly ruled it out when speaking to reporters earlier this month. The Athletic reported that James’ partner, Fenway Sports Group, which owns Liverpool and the Boston Red Sox, objected to the potential price.
Some reports have speculated that the owners of the NHL’s Kraken would be in pole position in Seattle, which would make sense. There has also been speculation that Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos might be interested. (Buying a major league basketball team after eliminating the Post’s sports section would seem a little strange, but these are strange days.)
What happened to Seattle’s first NBA team?
The Seattle SuperSonics have succeeded and failed and were reborn in 2008 as the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Sonics won their only NBA title in 1979, but then went virtually silent. The team signed Kevin Durant in the 2007 draft for what turned out to be his final season at Washington State. Amid failure to reach an agreement with local and state officials over renovating its stadium or building a new one, majority owner Howard Schultz – the former Starbucks boss – sold the team for $350 million in 2006 to an Oklahoma-based investment group that controversially but predictably shipped it to Oklahoma.
The Thunder flourished and are the reigning NBA champions. Schultz called the sale “the biggest regret of my professional life.”
Is there room for two more teams?
In a huge country of more than 340 million inhabitants? Of course. That said, the larger the league, the more diluted the talent pool, and the NBA relies heavily on star power.
Prosperous Seattle is the 15th largest urban area in the US and can easily accommodate a franchise in a modern setting. Vegas is smaller but has enough rich people to fill luxury boxes. The NBA’s global appeal makes it an attractive night for many international visitors (although it’s a shrinking group). That said, Las Vegas is not a big television market (only the 40th largest market in the country, according to Nielsen) and its tourism-dependent economy is collapsing.
What would the teams be called?
Seattle has surely exhausted its weather- and location-related team names: It already has the Mariners, Seahawks, Kraken, Sounders, Storm, Reign, Orcas, Torrent and Seawolves. We get it: it’s rainy and coastal. The city has a proud coffee tradition, but we can hope the team stops anointing itself as Grinders or Roast in favor of the obvious: resurrecting the SuperSonics brand, tapping into a rich vein of history and nostalgia, and righting a perceived wrong as it drops anchor. (I’m sorry.)
Considering the recent NBA betting scandals, it’s debatable whether the Las Vegas team would follow the WNBA’s Aces and opt for a nickname related to the game. The hostile desert environment has no shortage of ferocious creatures that could offer inspiration in addition to the shine of the city itself, although American sports are already plagued by snakes, scorpions and wild cats, Miami brings the Heat and Phoenix makes its Suns shine.
Where would they play?
There is a lot of talk about building a new stadium, as is to be expected in a dynamic city that loves to build spectacular buildings. It would be cheaper and more logical, at least in the short term, to share T-Mobile Arena, the home of the Golden Knights located on the Strip. It has hosted the NBA Cup semifinals and finals since 2023. But a sensible, measured choice wouldn’t feel very like Las Vegas, would it?
A decade too late to save the Sonics, KeyArena near downtown Seattle was renovated with private money for $1.15 billion and renamed Climate Pledge Arena in 2020 by locally based Amazon, which acquired the rights to the name to highlight its stated commitment to sustainability. One question is how that squares with the $1 million donation in 2024 to the second inauguration fund of a coal-loving, regulation-repealing American president. Another is: Could an NBA team share it with tenants like the WNBA’s Storm and the NHL’s Kraken? Certainly.
How would they fill out their templates?
In addition to the regular draft, there would be an expansion draft. This typically requires existing teams to produce lists of protected and unprotected players. New franchises form their rosters by choosing no more than one unprotected player from each team. It sounds simple… too simple.
There is ample room to complicate procedures when making trades and deals taking into account salaries, roster balance and other conditions imposed by the league. There could be some impactful names on unprotected rosters if existing teams see the draft as an opportunity to offload overpaid and underperforming stars.
Would there be a conference realignment?
Those who paid attention in geography class don’t need to be told that Seattle and Las Vegas are firmly in the western United States. Then they will go to the Western Conference. To balance the two conferences with 16 teams each, one club would need to join the East: probably Minnesota or Memphis. Maybe New Orleans, but they’re conveniently close to the Texas teams.
Minnesota makes the most sense because it is distant from the other West teams but relatively close to a group of Eastern teams in the Midwest. That can also help competitive balance by moving a reliably strong team to a generally weaker conference.
Would this be for expansion?
For the foreseeable future. Exclusivity helps keep franchise values high and keeps more power in the hands of individual owners. Still, there are plenty of mid-sized American cities that could make an argument: Nashville, Baltimore, Austin, San Diego, Tampa, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Kansas City, St Louis.
Success in Seattle could reignite rumors of Vancouver bringing back a team, while NBA commissioner Adam Silver has mentioned Montreal and Mexico City as contenders. But economic uncertainty – such as currency fluctuations – and growing international political tensions make it unlikely that the league will look for another franchise outside the United States in the short or medium term. It will focus on continuing to bring teams to Europe for regular season games and forming a new European league.
