Adam Silver believes there will be an NBA expansion, but doesn’t know when it will happen. While appearing on the Dan Patrick Show, the NBA Commissioner detailed the latest on when and if the league will add more teams in the foreseeable future.
“There’s cities worth thinking about,” Silver began. “It’s not obvious to me we should expand. I think it’s likely over time we will. The reason I say it’s not obvious is because as a global business, where something like two billion people will connect with us on social media, over a billion people over the course of the year will watch some portion of the game, adding another US city arguably, it’s unclear how much growth we’ll get as a result of that.
“When you’re adding expansion franchises, you’re diluting their competition. Let’s say we expand by two teams, two more teams that you know are going to be competing for those same players, and you’re diluting you’re economics to the extent we have locked in our television money for the next decade, you have two more partners. Having said that, I do believe certain markets potentially can be additive to the NBA, and that’s what we’re going to look at.”
Adam Silver reveals when the NBA will discuss league expansion
Adam Silver then talked about looking at the US for expansion and then potentially adding teams in Canada and Mexico City. He didn’t want to reveal specific cities because “many have reached out to say they’re interested, and our reaction so far is, ‘Thank you for your interest. We haven’t taken meetings with any cities.’” Silver revealed that the NBA has a board meeting around the Summer League in July, and NBA expansion is something that will be discussed.
The last time the NBA expanded was in 2004 when Charlotte returned. According to ESPN, if an NBA expansion gets the green light, Seattle and Las Vegas are considered the favorites to land teams. Seattle had an NBA team (Seattle SuperSonics) from 1967 to 2008. The franchise moved to Oklahoma City and changed its name to the Thunder. Oklahoma City is currently playing against the Indiana Pacers in the NBA Finals.
