Enthusiasm for NBA Expansion 'Not Overwhelming' Among Owners

The league hasn't added a new team since the 2005 season.

A fan pleads for the SuperSonics to return before a 2023 exhibition game between the Clippers and Jazz in Seattle. / Joe Nicholson-Imagn Images

The year 2025 marked the 20th anniversary of the Charlotte Bobcats' entry into the NBA—and therefore the 20th anniversary of the league's most recent expansion.

As the NBA has grown in the last decade—both during the 2010s' popularity boom and the 2020s' lucrative pandemic recovery—speculation has swirled about which cities might be next. The answer, however, may be no cities in the immediate future.

Momentum among league owners to expand at this time is "not overwhelming," according to a Tuesday morning report from David Aldridge and Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic.

"Central to that reticence is the league’s new 11-year, $76 billion media rights deal, beginning next season," they wrote. "Several owners would, at present, rather begin collecting and splitting the massive new revenues among the existing teams, rather than bringing in new partners that would also receive a cut of the financial pie."

Seattle and Las Vegas have long been suggested as frontrunners for future teams. The Seattle SuperSonics' relocation to Oklahoma City after the 2008 season rankled many, and Las Vegas and sports have undergone a significant detente as sports gambling has been legalized in many jurisdictions.

However, fans in those two cities may have to wait to join the basketball party.

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