re: Adam Silver Decision On Expansion Coming

Basketball is so global these days. It is the world's second most popular sport outside of soccer. Unlike soccer there is only 1 real top-notch leauge--the NBA. You have five in soccer with England, France, Spain, Italy, and Germany as top leagues.

There is certainly enough talent to expand the NBA.

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They’ll expand. Too much money to be lost by not expanding

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It was considered a foregone conclusion for a long time that they would be expanding and adding 2 teams. That's billions of dollars in pure profit that the owners get to split 30 ways. Problem is the new $76 billion media deal they signed last year was significantly larger than anyone was expecting so the math has changed significantly. Do we grab the upfront expansion fees now (but then have to split the media revenue 32 ways in perpetuity) or do we just keep things as they are (and continue to split the media revenue 30 ways)? Reportedly the teams are mostly split along economic lines where the larger and/or richer owners are interested in keeping the extra revenue longterm while the smaller market/less rich owners are interested in the cash in hand now.

It's worth noting that this is becoming a growing issue in sports ownership (and will likely only continue to grow going forward). Obviously anyone who can afford to own a pro sports franchise is by definition "wealthy as ****", but just like with anything else there are levels to this. Many of the legacy owners who inherited their teams or bought in at much lower prices just don't have the kind of outside wealth/income that these new owners and groups coming in do. Steve Ballmer can afford to lose a hundred million dollars and it would be a rounding error. The Buss family not so much. It's why the Buss' recently sold 51% of the Lakers (to the rich-arse ownership group that owns the Dodgers). It's why Mark Davis fought to move the team to Vegas and then sold 10% of the Raiders to the Brady group (he's reportedly one of the least liquid owners in the league and now he has a cool $450 million cash extra in hand) and it's why the Mets can finally afford to outspend the Yankees (Steve Cohen is far wealthier than the Steinbrenner family).

These kind of wealth and outside income disparities mean that the short and longterm goals of the various owners are likely going to align less and less moving forward.

They might as well just make it 4 teams............the Lakers/Celtics/ Knicks and pick another team...............it doesnt matter.

The whole league is geared towards them so who cares.

As bad as the Men’s NBA is, it’s very popular.

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Its Vegas they are already planning the Stadium

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They have 2 arenas in Vegas that are less than 10 years old

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Just take the Sonics from OKC and put them back in Seattle where they should have been in the first place. Nobody will miss OKC not having a team.

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You’d have an argument if they weren’t one of the best franchises since that move

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Yup. Makes more sense to move the Pelicans if you are going to move NBA teams. They have to be at the top of that list.

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Gotta get a new arena deal done