NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said the league will decide in 2026 whether to add two teams, with Las Vegas and Seattle the most likely expansion cities. Silver made it clear to The Athletic that these two American cities are the cities on which the competition is most focused.
The commissioner spoke ahead of Tuesday’s NBA Cup championship in Las Vegas. He said the league has explored several markets, but indicated that expansion would almost certainly involve adding two franchises simultaneously.
Silver said the league is currently working with existing teams to gauge interest and understand the economic implications of expansion. The main question is whether the current 30 teams are willing to split the NBA’s approximately $11 billion in revenue among additional franchises.
“We’re in the process of working with our (existing) teams and gauging the level of interest and getting a better understanding of what the economics on the ground would be for those specific teams and what a pro forma would look like for them,” Silver said. “And then sometime in 2026 we will make a decision.”
Las Vegas has hosted the NBA Cup championship for three years and the league’s premier Summer League since 2004. The city of about 2 million already supports the NFL Raiders, NHL Golden Knights and WNBA Aces, and the Athletics will open a ballpark in 2028.
Seattle was home to the SuperSonics from 1967 until 2008, when the franchise moved to Oklahoma City and became the Thunder. The city has long been considered a prime candidate for a return to the NBA.
The league’s 11-year, $76 billion broadcast deal with major networks and streaming services is not growing with additional teams. Governors must be convinced that revenues from new franchises would offset losses from dividing media rights among 32 teams instead of 30.
Under the collective bargaining agreement, players receive 51 percent of all basketball-related revenue. The remaining pie that the owners divide amounts to just over $5 billion.
“I want to be sensitive to the idea that we’re teasing these markets in some way, because I know we’ve been talking about it for a while,” Silver said.
Silver addressed routine speculation about teams potentially moving from smaller markets like Memphis or New Orleans. He emphasized that the league cannot force teams to move and called relocation a “separate issue” from expansion.
“Just because some markets don’t generate the same revenue as others doesn’t mean they are markets unworthy of NBA franchises,” Silver said. “If you look at our Constitution, the factors that the owners have to look at when making a decision about whether or not to move a team is looking at the support that the team has historically had in that community, the operation of that team, the competitive opportunities in that market. And we live in a big country. So I think if we were to move a team, it wouldn’t be the right way to rank the teams from 1 to 30 in terms of market size or economic opportunities, markets, and then just take the two teams in the rankings.” bottom and say, let’s take them to markets where they could be more prosperous.”
The NBA last expanded in 2004 when the Charlotte Bobcats became the league’s 30th franchise. Silver also mentioned that the league was looking at Mexico City as a possible expansion location, in addition to the two-track plan to start a new league in Europe with FIBA.
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