NBA commissioner Adam Silver once again addressed the possibility of expansion during a press conference on Monday, telling reporters – including Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic – that the league will more seriously consider that possibility after completing the next media rights deal. The current media deal expires after the 2024/25 season.
Silver acknowledged that Las Vegas and Seattle are two markets the NBA will consider if and when the time comes, but stressed that the league hasn’t started that process and that it would involve more than just those two cities.
“We will look at this market,” he said from Vegas. “There’s no doubt there’s enormous interest in Seattle. That’s not a secret. There are other markets that have indicated interest. For the people who hear or read about this interview, we are not engaged in that process now. We’re not taking meetings right now with any potential groups. What we’re saying to everyone, privately is the same thing I’m saying publicly that there’ll be a very open process at the time already to consider expansion. But that’s not yet. That’s not yet now.”
Silver also addressed several other topics during his press conference in Las Vegas, including the influence of gambling on the sport and sovereign wealth funds purchasing stakes in NBA franchises. Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press and Tim Bontemps of ESPN have quotes from Silver on those issues, among others.
Here are a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- As first tweeted by Jamal Crawford and later confirmed by the guard himself, Isaiah Thomas is among the veteran free agents conducting workouts for teams in Las Vegas as he looks to get back into the NBA. John Wall, Dion Waiters, and Harry Giles are a few of the other free agents who have worked out for NBA clubs in Vegas.
- Could this be Ricky Rubio‘s last season in the NBA? According to a report from Spanish outlet Mundo Deportivo, the veteran point guard is considering returning to his home country and playing for Barcelona in 2024. Rubio is under contract with the Cavaliers for two more seasons, though his ’24/25 salary is only partially guaranteed.
- After being waived by Memphis last season, guard Kennedy Chandler is owed guaranteed salaries for the next two seasons. However, he’s not satisfied to simply cash those pay checks, telling Brian Lewis of The New York Post that he’s determined to get back on an NBA roster in 2023/24. “I don’t really care that they still have to pay me for two years. I really don’t care about that because I want to get paid more,” he said. “It’s not just about the money. I could say ‘Nah, I’m good.’ I could sign a regular G-League, or a two-way. But I want to push myself and get back on a contract with another team and get back to what I used to do and be me, be myself.”
- Speaking to Howard Beck of GQ, veteran agent David Falk – who represented Michael Jordan and Patrick Ewing, among other stars in the 1990s – explained why he finds NBA free agency “a little bit boring” these days. In Falk’s view, the league’s cap and contract rules have limited agents’ ability to get creative when they negotiate contracts. “The nature of being an agent, it’s become so restrictive that it doesn’t require a lot of skills,” he said. “Mathematically, only 30 percent of the contracts are negotiated. And I think that most players really don’t need agents today.”
Of all those names, John Wall is the better.
Just need playing time.
The process for expansion begins when LeBron retires. That is when a group, headed by LeBron, will be granted a franchise in Las Vegas.
I don’t think it will be that long
First NBA needs to fool a network in to this declining
Product. They lose to SpongeBob in s
Tv viewers,
Which network? TNT, ABC, ESPN, NBA TV or all the local sports affiliate. They’re also most likely adding Amazon Prime with the new TV deal. It’s a good thing it isn’t 25 years ago before they had other methods of getting the product into your home, you know back when TV ratings were the only thing that mattered.
For those that still care about ratings though. The NBA had it’s highest average viewership in 5 years last year and the Finals more than tripled the viewership of any competition across all five games.
Yes the NBA had a lower viewership than SpongeBob SquarePants, but you know what shows has a lower viewership as well? Every single TV series broadcast across cable and network television.
Tnt is not renewing. Just me. Why do you think Barkley already has a show? Set up on CNN.
Barkley, Kenny, Shaq and Ernie just signed a new contracts with TNT for 10 years in October, trust me they wouldn’t commit nearly a quarter of a million dollars to basketball guys to not renew their contract with the NBA?
That is correct and you can add Floyd “Money” Mayweather as a possible co-owner along side LBJ.
HI HO SILVER:
For the future why not
#1 Have the game officials call TRAVELING !!
#2 Add a THIRD ROUND to the NBA Draft
#3 Do SOMETHING, ANYTHING to rein in the flagrant, rampant, uncontrolled trading of Draft Picks all the way into SIX YEARS in the future. Just check the Final Results of this year’s draft and see how many of the 58 picks that were made were the picks that ORIGINALLY belonged to the picking team.
1. Meh, as long as it isn’t egregious I could care less about traveling.
2. A third round in the draft? Maybe, but the 3rd rounders are gonna just fill G-League rosters like the unsigned free agents rookies do now. As is the kids that aren’t drafted at least get to pick where they play to a point.
3. It doesn’t matter who make the pick as long as the youngsters get drafted.
– I completely agree about travelling …… how about calling palming/carrying violations as well.
– The current 2 round format works just fine. There are not enough NBA slots to go around, most 2nd round draftees end up in the G-League/overseas anyway. No need for a 3rd round.
– Might, just might need some more controls …… just for the fact that it’s so skewed now, just a few teams e.g. OKC, UTA, NOL, etc with an absurd amount of picks.
However, this is part of what makes the NBA fun to watch. Different teams with different approaches to a season – some know they can contend, some rebuild, some will hold a parade for a play-in spot.
Is this Isaiah Thomas thing a practical joke at this point? He’s 34 years old and hasn’t played more than 40 games in a season since 2017.
The nba doesn’t need more teams. It needs fewer teams
Two more teams is about right. 20-30 years ago the talent pool was mainly just talent from the U.S. and a few guys from Europe. If you compare that to today where they pull talent from all over the world.
There’s also an opportunity the league can’t really afford to miss, look at the early success in the NHL with the Seattle Kraken and the current champs The Vegas Golden Knights who both got very good very fast and sell out every game in their home markets.
It would also give the NBA a chance to move the Grizzlies and Timberwolves to the Eastern Conference where they geographically belong.
32 or 36 should be the final number
The NBA is on the decline. Unlike the other sports the NBA got political and has since turned the fans off. The product is watered down and very few of the superstars are worth their contracts! Now if a star player is not winning all the time, he then wants to be traded and not traded to just any team but to a team of his choice. Now a long term contract means nothing! A 3 rd round would be horrible, have you guys watched any of the summer league games? Absolutely terrible. Stick fork in the NBA because it’s about done.
Team valuations just keep getting higher, players salaries just keep getting higher and a new TV deal in 2025 expected to be double in value than what it is now.
Not too bad for a league in decline.
MLB never got political and it’s in much worse shape. They actually should get political granted their viewing audience is the same age as our founding fathers lmao
Also Colin Kapernick and the military supported NFL would like a word lmao
The NBA never got political, it’s just that all the bigots and racists are more outspoken about their aversion to diversity then they’ve been since the 70’s.
Contrary to what certain pundits say viewership is actually at an all time high if you combine all platforms and don’t just cherry pick traditional viewing methods. Merchandise and ticket revenue is up as well. The NBA is making billions, it isn’t even close to being in danger of decline nor is ever going to go defunct in our lifetimes or generations thereafter.
Please provide those viewership stats. Quate source
Quote my source? There’s most likely a cell phone in your hand(s) use it. Try an internet search engine like Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckgo ..etc. Then type in something like 2023 NBA regular season TV ratings.
But since you want a source try link to sportsmediawatch.com.
Here’s a couple excerpts for you to save you some reading.
The NBA versus the rest of television
It is the case that the rest of television is usually excluded from most discussion of the NBA’s recent ratings slump. NBA viewership may be down by about half from its Jordan-era peak, but the number of viewers watching primetime television is down nearly half from just a decade ago — dropping from 112.9 million during the 2012-13 season to just 63.8 million in the most recent campaign.
The result of that plunge in primetime viewing is that the NBA’s diminished audience still accounts for a greater and greater share of the audience. NBA games averaged a 3% share during the 2022-23 season, the highest of the past 20 years. It is worth noting that the share is a consolation prize at best; few cited the figure prior to the recent collapse in TV viewing. Nonetheless, the share does indicate that the NBA, and live sports in general, has been largely resilient to the shrinking linear television landscape.
Conclusions
The point of this examination is not to argue that the NBA is in a particularly strong position right now. It is hard to imagine that the league wants to be in the same viewership range it was in 20 years ago, when perceptions surrounding the game were perhaps even more negative than they are today, especially given the contribution from out-of-home viewing that did not exist back then. With that said, the NBA’s current viewership situation is frankly par for the course for the league in the post-Jordan era and to no small extent unavoidable given the decline in television viewing.
And those stats are now counted
The NBA only pissed off a few fragile people who didn’t really matter anyway…
The NBA is making more money than it ever has before… On top of that so are the teams…
TV ratings are meaningless as people watch in various other ways…
At least when the NBA chose to be political it didn’t take the NFL route and make themselves a joke on the international stage… The NBA took the high road…
The NBA positioned itself very smartly in 2020…
Mexico and Seattle should be the obvious choices for the new 2 teams…
Seattle for obvious reasons…
Mexico because the NBA is a global sport and another team outside the US will help grow that image…
Chandler certainly can get a two-way with the Nets but he’s unlikely to grab one of their standard contract slots. I think the Nets will guarantee Sumner, then look to sign a big with the last standard spot, if they don’t make a trade. For the two-ways, Jalen Wilson is looking great in his spot. Raiquan Gray? Not so much. Duke and Chandler can pass him for two-way spots, but one or both may look to go elsewhere if there are standard spots available.