NBA Sets First Expansion Vote for Las Vegas and Seattle With 2028 Target, Price Tags That Could Hit $10 Billion

The NBA’s long-running expansion conversation is moving from “someday” to a calendar date.

The league is scheduled to hold a vote at the Board of Governors meetings March 24–25 to explore adding expansion teams exclusively in Las Vegas and Seattle, with the two franchises targeted to begin play in the 2028–29 season, according to sources familiar with the league’s plans.

The vote is described as the first of multiple steps. If approved, it would allow the NBA to formally proceed with a bidding process in the two markets. A second vote later in 2026 would be required to finalize expansion transactions and move the league from 30 teams to 32. In both rounds, 23 of 30 team owners would need to vote in favor.

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The money being discussed is not subtle. Industry executives expect bids in the range of $7 billion to $10 billion per franchise, with estimates that Las Vegas and Seattle would land among the league’s top eight revenue generators once operational.

That kind of valuation talk tracks with where NBA franchise prices have gone recently. Team values have surged in the last several years, including the Celtics selling for a reported $6.1 billion valuation, and the Lakers changing hands at a reported $10 billion, which would stand as the largest price for a U.S. pro sports team.

Why Las Vegas and Seattle keep coming up
Neither market is a surprise.

Las Vegas has become a default hosting hub for the league, Summer League, major events, and the NBA Cup being key parts of the city’s NBA footprint, while also proving it can support big-league franchises across multiple sports. The Golden Knights began NHL play in 2017, the Raiders moved there in 2020, and MLB’s Athletics are in the process of relocating to Las Vegas, with a current target of 2028 for the move.

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Seattle has been without an NBA team since 2008, when the SuperSonics relocated to Oklahoma City and became the Thunder. The city’s current arena picture is no longer the one the league left behind; Climate Pledge Arena (home of the NHL Kraken and WNBA Storm) underwent major renovations from 2018 to 2021.

Commissioner Adam Silver has been publicly consistent on the timeline: a decision on whether the league will proceed with domestic expansion is expected in calendar year 2026. He acknowledged both markets as leading candidates while also noting the league has evaluated other options. “Not a secret we’re looking at this market in Las Vegas. We are looking at Seattle,” Silver said in December.

What happens to conferences if two West teams are added
Las Vegas and Seattle would both be placed in the Western Conference, creating a numbers problem the NBA would need to solve. League executives have been preparing for the likely outcome: one current Western Conference franchise moving to the Eastern Conference to keep conferences balanced at 16 teams each. Two teams that have been widely mentioned as candidates to shift are the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Memphis Grizzlies.

Why owners are split even with massive fees on the table
Expansion fees sound like a free money headline, but they come with tradeoffs inside the ownership group.

A growing number of owners are viewed as supportive because of the long-term revenue growth potential of adding two major markets. At the same time, some owners are hesitant because expansion dilutes league equity: moving from 1/30 ownership shares to 1/32 changes the math, and some want to see final bids and franchise fees before committing.

The March 24–25 vote is not expected to be a final “teams approved, start building jerseys” moment. It is the first formal step toward that outcome: permission to explore, narrow to two cities, and begin the process of seeing whether the bids and the economics are strong enough to justify expansion on the league’s terms.

For fans in Seattle, it’s the clearest movement toward NBA basketball returning since the Sonics left. For Las Vegas, it’s another sign the city’s sports portfolio keeps expanding. For the league, it’s the shift from speculation to process with a 2028–29 target date that now has something the NBA rarely gives expansion rumors: an actual timetable.

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