All 30 owners voted in favour of exploring the two city bids, according to ESPN, with the 2028-29 season the entry point.<\/p>\n
Published On 26 Mar 202626 Mar 2026<\/p>\n
The National \u200cBasketball Association Board of Governors voted on Wednesday \u2060in favour \u2060of the league exploring bids for expansion teams in Las Vegas and Seattle.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday\u2019s vote reflects our \u2060Board\u2019s interest in exploring potential expansion to Las Vegas and Seattle \u2013 two markets with a long history of \u2060support for NBA basketball,\u201d Commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe look forward to taking this next step and engaging with interested parties.\u201d The vote does not guarantee Seattle \u200cand Las Vegas will receive expansion teams, but it allows the league to formally explore those opportunities, with bids expected to command between $7bn and $10bn per team.<\/p>\n
Seattle lost the SuperSonics in 2008 when ownership relocated the franchise to Oklahoma City after failing to \u2060secure a new arena deal.<\/p>\n
Las Vegas \u2060has never had an NBA team but continues to grow as a major sports market, already home to NFL and NHL franchises, with Major \u2060League Baseball\u2019s Athletics planning a move there as well.<\/p>\n
If the league moves forward, \u2060both teams are expected to begin \u2060play ahead of the 2028-29 season, marking the NBA\u2019s most significant expansion step since the Charlotte Bobcats joined in 2004.<\/p>\n
With both new franchises \u200cexpected to land in the Western Conference, executives broadly expect either the Minnesota Timberwolves or the Memphis Grizzlies to \u200cshift \u200cto the East to balance the conferences at 16 teams each.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All 30 owners voted in favour of exploring the two city bids, according to ESPN, with the 2028-29…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":679693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,67,275,417,418],"class_list":["post-679692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-news","tag-sport","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116294383705381793","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=679692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/679693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}