NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Tuesday that the NBA Board of Governors has formally instructed the league office to review potential expansion thoroughly. The directive, provided at meetings in Las Vegas, is the first formal league-wide move toward considering adding teams.
No timeline has been established, but the study will concentrate on essential business considerations, talent imbalance, and competitive balance. Silver stressed that this is merely a first step in a process that may take several years, highlighting the exploratory nature of the action.
Las Vegas and Seattle have become the top contenders. Once an NBA city, Seattle has been a presumed destination if expansion had happened. On the other hand, Las Vegas has continued to build its relationship with the league by hosting the NBA Summer League annually and, more recently, the NBA Cup. Silver said Las Vegas is already the “31st franchise in spirit.”
The league’s finance, audit, and strategy advisory committees—comprising selected team owners—will play a key role in studying expansion’s financial viability and long-term implications.
In Las Vegas, multiple ownership groups have begun to line up. They range from Oak View Group, which constructed Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena, to LVXP, a Las Vegas-based group pitching an NBA-ready arena.
No determination has been made about new teams, but the initiation of this study represents the NBA’s most tangible move toward expansion in more than a decade.