The NBA’s Board of Governors will meet on July 14 with expansion among the biggest talking points.
While the league has already narrowed focus on bringing teams to Seattle and Las Vegas, there are no guarantees expansion is approved at this time.
With multiple owners (including the New York Knicks’ Jim Dolan) outwardly anti-expansion and a large contingent of new ownership groups that may not value expansion fees as a reason to increase competition, it’s no sure thing the process gets the required 23 votes next week.
Even if 23 of the NBA’s 30 owners do approve the expansion process, however, there’s another looming challenge for Seattle, specifically: The looming sale of the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks.
Momentum Around Expansion
On Thursday, Front Office Sports contrasted the momentum growing around bids for a future Las Vegas NBA team and the limited suitor pool in Seattle.
While Vegas has four to five potential ownership groups – making for a more competitive process to drive up the price of an expansion team – Seattle still has just one, led by Samantha Holloway, governor of the NHL’s Kraken (whose building the returned SuperSonics’ would likely inhabit).
A new Las Vegas NBA team is also likely to build a new arena – unless Golden Knights’ owner Bill Foley wins the expansion bidding. Should that happen, an expansion team would likely play at the existing T-Mobile Arena. Foley has already stated that another $400 million would be required to make that venue (which has staged the NBA Cup for the last three years), “NBA-ready.”
A new arena is not necessarily an option for any winning Seattle proposal, even if not Holloway’s bid.
The last potential Sonics’ savior, Chris Hansen, was once aiming to build a new arena in Seattle’s SoDo neighborhood before the arrival of the Kraken. But since his bid to buy the Sacramento Kings and relocate them to Seattle was denied over a decade ago, there’s been limited movement on his efforts to acquire a team.
During his initial attempt to return the Sonics, Hansen also benefited from the presence of billionaire and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. But Ballmer purchased the Los Angeles Clippers in 2014, removing him from any Seattle NBA expansion process now.
Without Hansen involved, there are no clear secondary Seattle suitors until the Seahawks’ sale is finalized.
Seahawks Break NBA Expansion Math For Seattle
Even before their Super Bowl LX victory, it was announced that the Seahawks would be put up for sale. The fact that the franchise won its second title just weeks later only sweetened the deal.
While the NBA and NFL aren’t direct competitors, they would be when it comes to attracting deep-pocketed investors at the same time, as is the case here.
And for those investors, their choices are between paying between a reported $9 and $11 billion to buy the Seahawks; an established and consistent winner at this point, and the Seattle area’s most popular team. Or pay a similar amount to start a new NBA franchise from scratch (albeit with the existing SuperSonics branding).
During the 2024 season, the average NFL team received over $430 million in revenue. For comparison, NBA teams made an average of over $408 million in revenue for 2024-25.
There are, however, a few notes there:
NBA revenues are about to climb considerably under the new media contract. At the same time, though, the league is far more reliant on a regional TV model that’s currently in the midst of collapsing.
Plus, an NBA franchise needs 41 regular season home games, along with potential playoffs, to get to that number. An NFL team needs just eight to nine home dates, and maybe a playoff game in there.
In the Seahawks’ case, their venue is already there. There are no brand creation or fan-building exercises that need to occur. The SuperSonics’ return means either sharing an arena with the Kraken, or – if they somehow did get a new arena approved – having to spend another $1-2 billion on top of the team cost to get that built.
For any potential Sonics’ bidder with a passing interest in the Seahawks, owning the latter seems like a more enticing endeavor on paper than the former.
What’s Next?
The Board of Governors meeting is crucial, since expansion talks get put on hold pretty quickly if NBA owners fail to approve.
Part of that failure, should it happen, could come down to competitive bids in the Seattle and Las Vegas markets.
Where Vegas seems like it has the competition to fuel a climb toward that $10 billion mark, Seattle’s single bid doesn’t. And likely won’t until after the Seahawks deal is finalized, if any of those interested parties are looking at the Sonics as a reasonable consolation prize.
A pivot to a SuperSonics bid probably won’t materialize before next week, though. Which could mean the SuperSonics’ return (and expansion overall) is put on hold until the Seahawks’ process concludes and investment groups potentially refocus around NBA bids instead.