Adam Silver: NBA plans to address possible expansion ‘this season’

Adam Silver: NBA plans to address possible expansion ‘this season’

In case you’ve been living under a rock, the NBA signed a new 11-year, $76 billion media rights deal in July with Disney (ESPN/ABC), NBCUniversal (NBC/Peacock) and Amazon (Amazon Prime).

The deal won’t be expected to begin until the 2025-26 season, but it’s more than triple the current nine-year, $24 billion media rights deal the league has right now with Disney (ESPN/ABC) and Warner Bros. Discovery (TNT).

Money is going to be flowing into the NBA’s pockets–more than it will know what to do with. With that, one of the biggest solutions is expanding; the last time a new team entered the field was when the New Orleans Pelicans (formerly the Hornets) was introduced in 2002.

Commissioner Adam Silver spoke with reporters Tuesday, stating that expansion with the NBA Board of Governors this week didn’t come up, but it will at some point during 2024-25.

“There was not a lot of discussion in this meeting about expansion, but only largely not for lack of interest, it was that we had said to them that we’re not quite ready,” he said, according to ESPN’s Tim Bontemps. “It was something that we told our board we plan to address this season, and we’re not quite ready yet. But I think there’s certainly interest in the process, and I think that we’re not there yet in terms of having made any specific decisions about markets or even frankly to expand.”

When the league does decide to expand, there is no concrete answer for where it will possibly expand. Las Vegas is on the list, and likely will Seattle, which held the SuperSonics for 41 years before moving to Oklahoma City in 2008.

“I made no secret out of it. Las Vegas is one of those markets we’re gonna look to. I know that the fans in Seattle have wanted us to get back there forever,” Silver said last December. “No commitments, you know, to anyone. But we’ll certainly be looking at those two markets … I think it’s sort of part of any organization you wanna grow over time.

“I think we could potentially add two more teams to this league that could be very competitive.”

The league is as talented as it has ever been. There’s an influx of talent, so much so that Lonnie Walker is signing an Exhibit 10 contract to make an NBA roster. That cries for expansion, and I’m hoping Silver chooses a pair of good markets hungry for an NBA team, when that comes to fruition.

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