NBA expansion in Las Vegas, Seattle: What it means, what's next

After years of rumor and speculation, the NBA is moving — suddenly rather quickly — toward expansion. The league announced Wednesday, March 25 that its Board of Governors voted to formally explore bids for potential expansion franchises to be added to the Seattle and Las Vegas markets. “Today’s vote reflects our Board’s interest in exploring potential expansion to Las Vegas and Seattle – two markets with a long history of support for NBA basketball,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Wednesday in a statement.

“We look forward to taking this next step and engaging with interested parties. ” Here’s everything you need to know about NBA expansion in Seattle and Las Vegas: What does this mean? This announcement doesn’t certify, with complete certainty, that NBA teams will be tipping off in Seattle and Las Vegas at the start of the 2028-29 season, though this is the next crucial step toward that.

Essentially, Wednesday’s vote signals an appetite for the 30 ownership groups in the NBA to expand to 32 teams. The league’s constitution stipulates that a measure like this requires at least 23 of 30 votes to pass, representing a supermajority of at least 76. 7%.

NBA owners, seeing the influx of revenue that would be generated from expansion in Seattle and Las Vegas, want that process to ramp up and intensify. What happens next? The NBA also announced that it contracted PJT Partners , an investment bank, to assess the health and viability of the prospective ownership groups that would be interested in establishing operations in those markets.