Right after that gifts the Mavs number 1 pick

Thanks Silver

Is the NBA headed to Seattle and Vegas?
For years, we’ve been waiting for the great city of Seattle to get the SuperSonics back. And for years, people have predicted the NBA would eventually put a team in Las Vegas. We’ve even had chatter that maybe LeBron James will be a part of the ownership group for the Vegas team. But expansion is a long, arduous process for the NBA to consider and act on.

We learned yesterday that at next week’s Board of Governors meeting, the NBA is prepared to vote on … no, not expansion … but to formally … look into … whether Seattle and Las Vegas are viable expansion markets. This is from Mike Vorkunov and David Aldridge:

“The NBA’s owners will meet later this month to decide whether the league will move forward with plans to add new franchises in Las Vegas and Seattle, in a possible next step toward long-awaited NBA expansion.

Team governors will vote during a March 25 meeting on whether to give the NBA the green light to formally examine those cities as potential expansion markets, according to a league source.”

In the words of Bob Wiley, baby steps. Look, it’s a start. What will be funny is if we find out an owner votes against even looking into this process. And yes, that owner will absolutely be the Knicks’ James Dolan. The NBA’s biggest issues when it comes to expanding to 32 teams are 1) does it make financial sense for the league and its owners, and 2) is there enough talent to not dilute the product on the floor?

As for the economic part of it, owners probably don’t want to turn their share of the $76 billion broadcasting rights deal into a 1/32 slice instead of 1/30. But as Vorkunov and Aldridge reported:

“Industry sources have opined in recent months that an expansion fee could run as high as $8 billion per team. Team governors do not have to split expansion fee revenues with the players.”

So we might be talking about an extra $16 billion for owners to share if two more teams join the NBA. Of course, the league is also trying to get NBA Europe off the ground in the next 18 months. It’s fair to wonder if the NBA would be biting off more than it can chew with all of these business ventures domestically and internationally. And after looking into these cities, the league will still have many logistics to figure out before approving expansion outright. These are baby steps toward adding the Sonics and Gamblers (What? Is Gamblers too much? Well, is the league embracing sports betting or not?).

As Vorkunov wrote, expanding by one or two teams would have a seismic impact on the NBA. And if you think about it, the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement is designed now to redistribute expensive talent as teams avoid the first and second aprons. Maybe that helps with the talent dilution question?

I’d put a lot of Bounce dollars on the NBA approving this vote to look into Seattle and Vegas expansion. We just don’t know if that actually leads to expansion in those cities, or at all.

https://youtu.be/jhdY8BxrxB4?si=1d2yR95NLMVYNThF