SEATTLE — In a year where Seattle has been the fulcrum of the sports world — NFL world champions, multiple collegiate and professional athletes representing western Washington at the Olympics, and unofficially becoming the U.S.’ greatest host city for the 2026 FIFA World Cup — the final grace note to an epic 12 months of Emerald City sports would be the declaration that the Seattle SuperSonics are returning to the NBA.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver kept the league’s expansion status vague during a press conference Tuesday, but confirmed the process is moving forward. According to Silver, the NBA is still on track to make a decision about expansion by the end of the year.
In return, the city has been reacting to and celebrating every drop of expansion news.
“It’s an incredible time to be a sports fan in Seattle. We’re coming off of a Seahawks Super Bowl Championship and a Mariners playoff run,” Pete Voss, the media relations director for Seattle NBA Fans, wrote MyNorthwest. “There are a lot of sports fans here in Seattle who want to see an NBA return, and they want to be a part of it. The return of the Sonics has the potential to be the most unifying moment in Seattle history.”
But expansion is not guaranteed, no matter how much excitement is concocted with every optimistic word from both NBA and Washington officials.
What is confirmed so far
NBA owners voted unanimously to allow the league to explore expansion. Furthermore, the owners landed on Las Vegas and Seattle as the only two possible locations if expansion is to occur.
According to ESPN Senior NBA Insider Shams Charania, this outcome was never in doubt, as expansion has been in consideration for years, and the two cities already have deep ties to the league: Seattle, once home to the one-time champion SuperSonics for 41 seasons, and Las Vegas, a metropolis that houses the NBA Summer League and previously hosted the NBA Cup.
This year’s Summer League is expected to set records for both attendance and merchandise sales.
In Silver’s press conference Tuesday night, coincidentally held in Las Vegas, he confirmed multiple private groups are competing to land an expansion franchise in Seattle, even though only one ownership group has gone public with its bid. Additionally, Seattle Times reporter Tim Booth disclosed that “four different groups” have come forward with pitches and strategies to own and operate the Las Vegas expansion team.
But exploring expansion is far different than approving expansion. That process requires 23 of the 30 existing owners to vote in favor.
Trouble brewing in Portland
The Portland Trail Blazers’ long-term future in the city is uncertain as the team’s governor, Tom Dundon, continues to negotiate with city officials over who will pay for stadium renovations. Dundon, who bought the team in March, wants Oregon taxpayers to pay $600 million for the renovations.
“There’s something that’s happening in Portland right now that’s making me nervous,” KIRO host Gee Scott, who is also the gameday host for the Seattle Seahawks, said. “The new owner is doing everything to make it seem like he’s about to take this team up out of here, including, ‘Hey Portland, you guys better pay, or we need you to pay for another stadium.’ And cities are like, ‘Nah, we’re not doing that.’ And so the potential of him being like what Clay Bennett was to Seattle and taking that team out of Portland. Where could he potentially take that team to?”
Las Vegas.
Moving a basketball franchise to Nevada would make a lot of sense mathematically while quenching the league’s thirst to make it a destination. It would also eliminate one of the prime relocation destinations that team governors threaten to use against their communities if stadium negotiations go awry, according to Dr. David Berri, a professor of Economics at Southern Utah University.
“Professional sports leagues in North America have a long history of keeping viable markets open so they can extract subsidies from their existing locations,” Berri told MyNorthwest. “That strategy has been immensely lucrative. Men’s sports leagues in North America have extracted billions in public subsidies. By putting a team in Seattle and Las Vegas, two potential markets are gone.”
Seattle and Las Vegas aren’t the only two relocation options, but they are at the top of the list.
“There are plenty of others, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, etc., since the NBA loves smaller markets where there are no other major men’s sports teams,” Berri added. “Losing Seattle and Las Vegas could matter a bit, but it is not a huge blow to this general strategy.”
Relocation requires a supermajority vote by the governors, just like expansion, but the argument for it is simpler and cleaner.
Will expansion increase revenue for the existing owners?
The addition of two NBA teams means the slice of non-local financial pie the team’s governors receive shrinks from a one-thirtieth share to a one-thirty-second share.
The revenue at stake includes TV rights, the NBA Cup, in-season tournament money, licensing, etc. For reference, the NBA agreed to an 11-year, $77 billion national media agreement in 2024 for national television broadcasts, streaming rights, and any other related assets.
That money is disbursed equally among the NBA governors, paid annually over the length of the deal (which expires during the 2035-36 season), with increments increasing by 7% per year.
But that money is for national rights, not local. Local revenue has been crumbling since the regional sports network collapse, which has already cost teams across the NBA, MLB, and NHL significant local broadcast income.
This drop in local revenue across all NBA franchises led to the league’s salary cap for the next season growing by only approximately 6.5% instead of the expected 10%, according to multiple NBA executives.
One anonymous team president claimed the league’s local television issue is one of the league’s biggest financial challenges.
Because of this belief, owners could be more cautious about expansion, as it could further dilute Basketball Related Income (BRI). There’s no guarantee that expansion would further hurt the league’s salary cap, but the long-term benefits of adding new teams pay off only once local media deals and partnerships have established themselves and matured in said markets.
“That makes the question for the existing owners this: Does Seattle and/or Las Vegas bring in more revenue for the league than the existing TV contract?” Dr. Stan Emert, the executive director of Sports Enterprise Management for the University of Washington (UW) Tacoma, said to MyNorthwest. “Seattle has the private sector leadership to make a very strong case of added value provided by the Greater Seattle area. I don’t think that Las Vegas can make that same claim.”
Unlike the NFL’s fixed home/visitor gate split, the NBA has used a pooled local revenue system since 2012-13. This system means each team contributes roughly 50% of its net local revenue into a central pool, which is then redistributed so every team receives an allocation close to the league’s average payroll.
In short, teams earn revenue from this pool based on need, meaning expansion teams have historically been net recipients of the pooled local revenue system for several years before establishing themselves.
“I want the Sonics back,” Emert added. “But I would not want to have to prove the case for value.”
On paper, Seattle looks promising to get its local revenue sealegs sooner rather than later, as the SuperSonics are a historic, decorated franchise with strong local backing. Just point to the many local clothing outlets producing and selling Sonics-themed merch since the vote to explore expansion passed unanimously.
“Sonics apparel is consistently one of Simply Seattle’s top-selling collections,” Addie Davis, the director of marketing and public relations for Simply Seattle, told MyNorthwest. “With the recent expansion news, we’re already seeing a significant spike in interest from fans eager to rep the return of the Sonics.”
Vegas’ local revenue looks completely different from Seattle’s, but it has proven capable of supporting multiple professional teams after launching the Golden Knights and swallowing both the Raiders and Athletics from Oakland.
Rising franchise values and financial complications could still push the timeline back. ESPN has reported that the next step is deciding whether to execute the purchases in 2026 or in a few years, even as Silver maintains his end-of-year goal.
Don’t forget the massive expansion fee owners receive
With every new team joining a sports league comes an expansion fee that goes directly into the governors’ pockets.
Franchise bids for Seattle and Las Vegas are reportedly estimated at roughly $7-10 billion per team, with many NBA insiders privately indicating that the floor is closer to $8 billion, according to Joe Pompliano’s Huddle Up newsletter.
If it comes out to $16 billion in total expansion fees, each NBA governor just earned $533.3 million. That’s a one-time payment excluded from the league’s revenue sharing.
It’s up for debate whether this isolated payment is enough to satisfy any governor’s concerns over revenue sharing and a decrease in earnings, but Berri believes the league and its owners will make the financial math work.
“They can structure the expansion fee to make it worth it,” Berri told MyNorthwest.
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