The NBA\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
During All-Star Weekend, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said team owners would formally discuss expansion at the March Board of Governors meeting. He cautioned that while the NBA would not come out of the meeting ready to vote to approve expansion, \u201cwe will likely come out of those meetings ready, prepared to take a next step in terms of potentially talking to interested parties.\u201d<\/p>\n
The league has pointed to potential expansion for years, with Las Vegas and Seattle long considered the frontrunners to land new NBA teams. Seattle, which lost the SuperSonics to Oklahoma City in 2008 after a contentious battle to keep the team in town, is the second-largest American media market without an NBA team<\/a>, after Tampa.<\/p>\n Las Vegas, while significantly less populous than Seattle, is a tourism hub that has successfully brought the NFL (the Raiders), the NHL (the Golden Knights) and the WNBA (the three-time champion Aces) to the city in the last decade. Additionally, the MLB\u2019s Athletics will begin playing in Vegas in 2028. In addition, the NBA has successfully developed the Vegas Summer League, with co-founders Warren LeGarie and Albert Hall, into a significant offseason event on the calendar.<\/p>\n Silver cautioned last month, however, that nothing is assured. While the NBA will consider expansion over the next few months, and employees in the league office have already been studying it and what that could entail, Silver did not say it is definite.<\/p>\n Expansion would ultimately need to be approved by a vote of 23 of the league\u2019s 30 team owners. While adding two teams would allow for scheduling symmetry in each conference, Silver cautioned last month that adding just one new franchise is also a possibility. The league most recently operated with 29 teams between 1995 and 2004, before re-establishing the Bobcats\u00a0in Charlotte in 2004. That franchise replaced the Hornets, which had moved to New Orleans in 2002. (In 2014, the Bobcats reacquired their original \u201cHornets\u201d name, with the New Orleans franchise renaming itself the Pelicans.)<\/p>\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t have to be a two-team expansion,\u201d Silver said at All-Star Weekend. \u201cFrankly, it doesn\u2019t have to be any number of teams. I think the logical next move would be to say, all right, we\u2019ve had those discussions internally, we\u2019ve made decisions about cities to focus on and what the opportunity is, and now we\u2019ve got to go out into the marketplace.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that\u2019s probably the most important step, to find out who is potentially interested in owning a franchise in particular cities, what\u2019s the value of that franchise. There\u2019s some work to do in terms of potential conference realignment. That\u2019s the next step there.\u201d<\/p>\n