Despite all the speculation about the NBA expanding to Seattle and Las Vegas, the league is still not formally exploring adding teams just yet, according to commissioner Adam Silver. That, however, could change as soon as next month.
“I’d say the current sense is we should be exploring it,” Silver told reporters before Game 1 of the NBA Finals in Oklahoma City on Thursday. “I don’t think it’s automatic because it depends on your perspective on the future of the league. As I’ve said before, expansion in a way is selling equity in the league, and if you believe in the league you don’t necessarily want to add partners. On the other hand, there are underserved markets in the United States and elsewhere, and, I think, markets that deserve to have NBA teams — probably, even if we were to expand, more than we can serve. But we have an owners’ meeting in July in Las Vegas, and it will be on the agenda to take the temperature in the room. We have committees that are already talking about it. But my sense is, at that meeting, they’re going to give direction to me and my colleagues at the league office that we should continue to explore it.”
Silver is still taking a step-by-step approach to expansion. The next step is that board of governors meeting.
“If a decision is made that there should be further exploration by the league office and presumably a committee of team owners, it would be more of a formal process,” Silver said.
For years, Silver has said that he has not wanted to give any city a head start by having discussions about what putting a team in a particular market might look like. Soon, though, if the current team owners conclude that the time is right, Silver will no longer have to push everybody off.
“I think there’s been no lack of interest, certainly,” Silver said. “You know, I’ve gotten a lot of unsolicited calls, and I essentially have said to people from several different cities, ‘We’re just not engaging in that process right now, and I want to be fair to everyone, so I don’t want to have meetings with some and not others.’ But I think if we were to say, ‘Yes, we are now going to move into some more formal exploratory phase,’ we would take those meetings, and, in addition, likely we would engage with outside advisors who would look at markets, look at economic opportunities and media opportunities, etc.”
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Silver added that this subject is connected to another issue that the league is facing: the uncertain future of regional sports networks.
“We do need to figure out something there,” he said. “Several of our team regional networks have actually shut down. Others have recently come out of bankruptcy. Others seem to be teetering. We’re going through a transition in media. By the way, it’s not for a lack of interest in local media rights. In fact, I personally think it’s the best value in all of sports right now because it’s where we have the most engagement is a team in its market. There’s nothing close to it.”
He added: “There’s been disruption because there’s been a dramatic decline in traditional television, and the streaming services, which have viewed themselves as national or global, haven’t really localized in a way yet to do team-specific deals. But I think we’re gonna see that. And as I said, we will be fine, because I have no doubt in terms of the value of that content.”
In addition to potentially adding more NBA teams, Silver reiterated that the league is looking at creating a new league in Europe.
“We think there is an opportunity to better serve fans there, so I view that as a form of expansion as well,” Silver said, “and that’s something we’re also thinking hard about.”
