The long wait basketball fans in the Pacific Northwest have endured for a Seattle Sonics return appears to be getting closer to its end.
ESPN’s Shams Charania reported Monday morning the NBA will hold a vote at its Board of Governors meeting March 24-25 to explore adding expansion teams specifically in Seattle and Las Vegas.
Report: NBA sets date to vote on a Seattle Sonics expansion team
Charania reported the target date for the expansion additions would be the 2028-29 season.
And according to the NBA insider, who joined Seattle Sports’ Bump and Stacy on Monday, the vote later this month is expected pass.
“This first vote next week on the 24th and 25th of the Board of Governors meeting is a formality to pass, from my understanding,” Charania said, “and that will then give the NBA the permission, the readiness to go and start a bidding process, start a franchise purchasing process to explore these two new expansion franchises in Las Vegas and in Seattle.
“So you give that approval to the league to basically give them the authority to go out and start a bidding process, and there’s been momentum within the league (and) the Board of Governors to start this process, to move forward with this process.”
Seattle has been in the discussion for an expansion team for close to two decades now since the Sonics were bought by a group led by Clay Bennett and moved to Oklahoma City to become the Thunder following the 2007-08 season.
Since the move, there have been times where it appeared the league was getting close to getting seriously exploring expansion only for the goal posts to get moved further back. So what’s different this time around?
Well, it of course starts with the money that could be made by the owners of the NBA’s 30 current franchises.
“What changed for everyone through the process as it has gone on over the last year, year and a half is just information and getting the lay of the land of what the financials look like, what the projections look like for the sale, what it could look like for a franchise fee, what it looks like just in terms of long-term revenue growth for the NBA,” Charania said.
Settling on Seattle and Las Vegas as the two expansion targets helped bring clarity to financial projections. Charania noted Mexico City was among the other candidates, but that Seattle and Las Vegas separated themselves as destinations in recent months.
“Now there is a projection of what a sale could look like, what the bidding prices could look like,” Charania said.
Industry executives and experts in the financial sector believe Seattle and Las Vegas could each generate $7-10 billion in yearly revenue, according to Charania.
“If it reaches in that plateau, you’re looking at two top eight-to-10 revenue-generating markets,” Charania said. “And (with) the appeal of those two markets and also the collective bargaining that the NBA is under now, it’s going to lead likely to robust purchasing prices for both teams.”
If the vote passes at the Board of Governors meeting as expected, a final vote to approve the addition of Seattle and Las Vegas teams could come at the end of 2026 once bids have been made for the potential new franchises, Charania said.
Listen to Bump and Stacy weekdays from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. or find the podcast on the Seattle Sports app.
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