LAS VEGAS — Adam Silver has provided his latest indication that the NBA will be weighing as hard an expansion in the years to come, if not nearly as close as it will come to the league.
Silver cautioned against any expectations that the league would act in any haste. It must first finalize its next media rights deal – the exclusive negotiation window with its current TV partners expires next April and this TV deal expires after the 2024-25 season – before it can move on to considering expansion.
“We will move on to expansion once these new media deals close,” Silver said Monday at the APSE annual conference. “It’s not a sure thing, but as I’ve said before, I think it’s normal for organizations to grow over time.”
Silver has said before that this expansion will be the next item on the NBA’s agenda, describing it as the third chapter in a slate that included the newly completed collective bargaining agreement and upcoming media deal.
He never rejected expansion but set it as a possible future goal. The league currently has 30 teams and hasn’t added a new one since the Charlotte Bobcats, now the Hornets, came into existence in 2004. The NHL is the only one of four North American professional sports leagues to have added a franchise since.
Seattle and Las Vegas are the two cities that have been heavily floated as potential expansion sites for the NBA. The league left Seattle when the Supersonics moved to Oklahoma City. Las Vegas has added NHL, NFL, and WNBA teams over the past decade, and an MLB team may be coming in the next few years.
Silver spoke well of Las Vegas, which has become a hotbed of NBA activity. The Summer League is currently going on, but the league also holds a G League show there each winter and recently announced that the season-opening tournament finals will be held here this coming December. Summer League has been called “our 31st franchise”.
He said, “We’ll look into that market.” “There’s no question that there’s tremendous interest in Seattle. It’s no secret. There are other markets that have shown interest. For people who have heard or read about this interview, we’re not involved in that process right now. We’re not having meetings right now with any potential groups. What We’re saying to everyone, privately, it’s the same thing I’m saying publicly that there’s going to be a very open process at that time already to look at expansion. But that hasn’t happened yet. That’s not anymore.”
Silver said he wants to finalize the CBA and media rights agreement so that potential ownership groups have certainty about the league and what that will look like.
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(Photo: Jennifer Pothecer/NBAE via Getty Images)