NBA Board of Governors vote to allow league to explore expansion bids in Seattle, Vegas, report
NBA approves Seattle for expansion city
Eighteen years after the Supersonics moved to Oklahoma City, the NBA may be just one step away from returning to the city of Seattle.
NEW YORK - Eighteen years after the Supersonics moved to Oklahoma City, the NBA may be just one step away from returning to the city of Seattle.
What we know:
The NBA Board of Governors has voted to allow the league to explore expansion bids exclusively for teams in Las Vegas and Seattle, sources told ESPN.
On Wednesday, ESPN's Shams Charania first reported that a bidding process is expected to generate offers in the $7-10 billion range for each team.
A vote to formally move forward with expansion bids likely won't come until at least the next NBA Board of Governors meeting in Las Vegas in July, which has long been home to the NBA's Summer League and has hosted the championship game of the NBA Cup the last three seasons.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is expected to speak Wednesday about the vote. FOX LOCAL will stream the news conference in the player below.
It's been 22 years since the NBA last expanded, returning to Charlotte in 2004. And no team has moved cities in the league since the Sonics left for Oklahoma City in the summer of 2008, unless you count the Nets moving from New Jersey to Brooklyn, N.Y. in 2012.
The NBA had a number of tasks it needed to complete prior to giving expansion real consideration.
The first was the completion of a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between the league and its players, which occurred in the summer of 2023. Then, the league needed to secure a new media rights deal, which followed in July 2024.
The sale of multiple franchises in the last couple of years has also helped set a benchmark for team valuations. The sale of the Boston Celtics for $6.1 billion, the Los Angeles Lakers for $10 billion, and the Portland Trail Blazers for $4.25 billion will give the NBA a solid understanding of what franchises are valued at in order to land on an asking price for expansion fees.
A range somewhere between $6–9 billion would be a fair expectation for the final number to land at, though competition for the bid could push the price tag higher.
ORLANDO, FLORIDA - MARCH 3: the NBA logo is displayed on a backboard at the game between the Washington Wizards and the Orlando Magic at the Kia Center on March 3, 2026 in Orlando, Florida. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, b
The Sonics left Seattle through a number of missteps that led to the ownership of the team landing with Clay Bennett in July 2016, who was a figure the NBA effectively owed a favor. Bennett had made Oklahoma City available to house the Hornets/Pelicans franchise for two seasons from 2005 to 2007 after Hurricane Katrina displaced the franchise from New Orleans.
Bennett bought the Sonics from an ownership group led by former Starbucks owner Howard Schultz in July 2006. Schultz had become frustrated by his inability to get financing for a new arena through either the city of Seattle, King County, or Washington State. KeyArena had opened with a new renovation in the fall of 1995 that was effectively obsolete upon its opening when compared to concurrent projects such as the United Center in Chicago. The arena lacked space for luxury boxes, the footprint to add an NHL team, and revenue streams beyond the events themselves.
With the opening of T-Mobile Park (then Safeco Field) in 1999, and Lumen Field (then Seahawks Stadium) in 2002 through public-private financing projects, the appetite for another publicly funded sports arena just a decade removed from its last renovation was lukewarm at best and met stern resistance from activists and lawmakers alike. No financing deal would ever come together for another renovation or a new arena.
Schultz took heavy criticism from local sports fans for selling the team to Bennett, whom everyone expected to try and move the team to his hometown of Oklahoma City. Technically, the sale was approved by a five-person majority of a nine-person executive board that represented the 58-person ownership group in totality. But Schultz was the chairman and bore the brunt of the ire.
Bennett and the Oklahoma City group put forth a meager effort to build a new arena in Seattle to satisfy a "good faith effort" clause in the sale agreement. A lawsuit between the ownership group and the city of Seattle over efforts to break the lease with KeyArena two years early ended in a settlement agreement that allowed the team to relocate to Oklahoma in the summer of 2008.
An ownership group headed by hedge fund manager Chris Hansen with the partnership of former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer reached an agreement to purchase the Sacramento Kings from Joe and Gavin Maloof in 2013. However, efforts from the city of Sacramento to build a new arena along with a lack of desire from NBA commissioner David Stern to move another franchise scuttled efforts to bring a team back to Seattle. The team was eventually sold to Vivek Ranadivé, who kept the team in Sacramento.
The renovation of KeyArena into Climate Pledge Arena changed the landscape as it finally gave the city of Seattle a building with the necessary infrastructure to host NHL hockey and NBA basketball.
The Source: Information in this story came from the NBA and FOX 13 Seattle reporting.
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