The NBA moved a step closer to expansion in Las Vegas and Seattle this past week.
The latest deadline for bid groups passed on Thursday, just days after NBA team owners met and discussed expansion in New York.
A bid group led by Golden Knights owner Bill Foley submitted a second bid letter to the league on Thursday, ahead of the deadline and is still in the running, a person with knowledge of the situation told the Review-Journal.
There hasn’t been any indication that any of the other groups have dropped out of the running for a Las Vegas team.
The other groups include one led by billionaire Walmart heiress Nancy Walton Laurie and her husband Bill Laurie; one dubbed the Las Vegas Jacks, which includes former Phoenix Suns owner Jerry Colangelo and former NBA player and coach Vinny Del Negro; and another group that remains anonymous.
When asked by the Review-Journal on Tuesday how many bid groups remained active in the Las Vegas bid process, NBA commissioner Adam Silver didn’t provide an exact figure.
“Several active groups,” Silver said. “I’ll leave it at that.”
Silver also noted that some groups previously interested in bidding on a Las Vegas NBA expansion team fell out of the running after previous deadlines without naming the groups. A group led by billionaire venture capitalist Joshua Kusher and former Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger ended their pursuit of a Las Vegas expansion team and bought the Los Angeles Lakers for $12.5 billion.
Silver has said the NBA wants to make a decision by the end of this year with the goal of an expansion taking place for the 2028-29 season.
Proving bid case
In Las Vegas and Seattle, the bidding groups are basically demonstrating their financing to the league and PJT Partners, the investment bank brought in to help oversee the expansion process.
Silver said the bid groups are built similarly with a primary investor and then several other smaller partners, largely due to the potential bid amounts reaching as high as $10 billion. The fee in Las Vegas is likely to be higher than in Seattle because of greater interest.
“In almost all these cases, given the values of these franchises, often there’s a lead investor, but then there’s multiple parties who are part of an ownership group,” Silver said Monday post-meeting. “It’s unique in expansion because you have an opportunity to pick your partners. So, it’s not just the principal. I think they’re (board of governors and PJT) interested in the entire group. And then beyond that, I think it’s what’s the level of passion? What are they projecting they can do in the market? Again, because if you’re adding a team, then the question is, how accretive is that?”
If the league chooses to expand, the owners will essentially be selling equity in the league, which is why the NBA board of governors and PJT Partners are interested in each group’s overall plan and what they believe the respective markets in Las Vegas and Seattle can bring to the table, Silver said.
“To the extent you’re going to do that, then the question becomes, all right, beyond just the straight math of they’re paying you for your future revenue stream, are these activities in this market going to be accretive to the entire league,” Silver said. “In some cases, that’s because of the quality of the ownership group. There’s certain unique attributes of cities that they bring, I think both for Las Vegas and Seattle. Las Vegas is, in my mind, a global entertainment capital. Seattle is a global tech capital.”
Arena plans
With Las Vegas officials dubbing the city the sports and entertainment capital of the world, an arena that would fit that mold is what the NBA is considering as far as where a potential NBA arena could be built and what the building will feature.
“There was some discussion (during the board of governors meeting) about how much the Sphere has impacted Las Vegas, what a technological marvel that is, what it’s been as a showcase and even as what it’s meant economically for Las Vegas,” Silver said. “And so discussions are in a similar vein. … My personal view is it’s premature to start locking in the site. I think there are several different locations that would be very viable for NBA basketball in Las Vegas.”
To that sentiment, Silver said some of the ownership groups have presented arena plans he described as “a modern entertainment palace in Las Vegas.”
“It’s a unique market where you can truly see essentially 365-day-a-year activity,” Silver said.
Seattle still one horse race?
Seattle’s NBA expansion bid has seen two groups publicly express interest in bringing a team back to The Emerald City, with Silver alluding that there are more than just those two involved.
A group that includes BlackSun Private Equity, Native World Sports and other investors had interest in bidding on an Seattle NBA team, with plans to build an arena on tribal land about 35 miles outside of the city.
The leading group is One Roof Sports & Entertainment, which is led by Seattle Kraken majority owner Samantha Halloway. The group would look to have a team play at Climate Pledge Arena, the revamped former Key Arena where the former SuperSonics used to play before being relocated in 2008 to Oklahoma City and being rebranded as the Thunder.
Despite the arena being just five years removed from a massive $1.1 billion renovation to allow the Kraken to begin play there, Silver said some upgrades would be needed for it to be the home of an NBA franchise.
“In Seattle, we have had operational groups out to Climate Pledge,” Silver said. “You clearly have a state-of-the-art arena there. May require some modifications for NBA basketball. If we were opening in five weeks, we could be ready in Seattle. Because we can only take on so much at once, more of the discussion was around Las Vegas. … I’ve been saying it’s our goal to have decisions by the end of the year. That continues to be our goal.”
Contact Mick Akers at makers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on X.
