Silver acknowledges ‘interest’ in NBA expansion

NEW YORK — NBA commissioner Adam Silver said Tuesday that there wasn’t discussion of expansion at this week’s meeting of the league’s board of governors but that the topic will be addressed at some point “this season.”

“There was not a lot of discussion in this meeting about expansion, but only largely not for lack of interest, it was that we had said to them that we’re not quite ready,” Silver said at his news conference at the conclusion of the meetings Tuesday afternoon at a luxury midtown Manhattan hotel.

“It was something that we told our board we plan to address this season, and we’re not quite ready yet. But I think there’s certainly interest in the process, and I think that we’re not there yet in terms of having made any specific decisions about markets or even frankly to expand.”

The topic of expansion has been an ongoing one in NBA circles over the past few years, with both Seattle and Las Vegas being floated as potential homes for new teams. As time has passed, Silver has repeatedly said that the league was going to address expansion in a specific order, taking care of its new collective bargaining agreement and then its new television deal before turning to the topic of expansion.

The CBA was agreed to in spring 2023, and the NBA came to a tentative agreement with Disney, Comcast and Amazon this year on its new television deal, paving the way for the league to begin looking at expansion over the next several months. The first step in that process would be forming a committee of several owners to explore the topic of expansion and to determine what the next steps would be.

Speaking of Seattle, Silver was also asked specifically about Climate Pledge Arena, formerly known as Key Arena, and whether the renovations the arena has undergone over the past few seasons would be enough to entice the league to return there after the Seattle SuperSonics moved to Oklahoma City in 2008.

Silver sidestepped the question, saying that the league focuses on every arena it plays in everywhere.

“The answer is yes,” Silver said. “We’re always paying attention to what’s happening in other arenas throughout the United States when we do play games there. We look very closely at the support we get in those markets.”

“But incidentally, we look everywhere. I think we have a pretty good library now of arenas everywhere in the world, and in part because even if we’re not playing there on a regular basis, there’s things we can learn.”

In addition, Silver touched on several other topics, including:

• Beyond expansion, two separate NBA teams — the Minnesota Timberwolves and Boston Celtics — are currently involved in sale processes. Minnesota’s sale from longtime owner Glen Taylor to entrepreneur Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez has been mired in a legal battle for months, with an upcoming arbitration hearing set to determine whether Taylor’s decision to no longer sell the team will carry forward. Silver said the league was staying hands-off on the case — including how it would react if either side wins the arbitration case — and letting that legal process play out.

“The short answer is no,” Silver said. “That’s a process that exists independent of the league that was set out in the sales agreement, and because, depending on the outcome, only then would the league then continue a vetting process for ownership. So it’s sort of pencils down at the league office; we’re not really operating in any way right now on that situation, other than just waiting for the outcome of that arbitration.”

Silver’s Celtics answer was similar, saying that there wasn’t much for him to add outside of the fact the sale process is ongoing after Boston’s controlling ownership group, led by Wyc Grousbeck, announced it would be selling the controlling stake in the team shortly after Boston claimed a record-setting 18th NBA title back in June.

Silver said in the wake of the Timberwolves sale that he no longer wants there to be any “stepped” sale transactions that take place over a couple of years. When asked how he felt about Grousbeck framing the potential sale of the Celtics in a similar manner, he said these things will be adjudicated on a case-by-case basis.

“In terms of the composition of ownership and any potential step transaction, what we’ve said is present to us what you’re considering and we’ll look at it on a unique basis. I think every one of these situations presents itself differently. I think it remains the case of what I said philosophically about step transactions, but sort of the devil is in the details there.”

• Silver was also asked about his New York Times op-ed from roughly a decade ago, when he came out in favor of legalized sports betting, and how he assesses the current relationship between sports leagues and betting.

Silver went on to say that he didn’t have regrets on his position and that he believes regulation of the industry was necessary.

“I’d say when it comes to sports betting, I certainly don’t regret writing that op-ed piece and being in favor of legalized sports betting,” Silver said. “I still think you can’t turn the clock back. I think, as I said at the time, with the advent of the internet, widely available sports betting online, this is even before we had legalized, well over 30 states now where you can bet legally, that we had to deal directly with technology and recognize that if we don’t legalize sports betting, people are going to find ways to do it illegally.

“One thing I haven’t changed my view on but I’m trying to be a realist about is that, as you recall, before I wrote that op-ed piece — and that was before the Supreme Court had overturned PASPA [the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act] and then allowed the states to legalize sports betting — I was in favor of a federal framework for sports betting. I still am. I still think that the hodgepodge of state by state, it makes it more difficult for the league to administer it. I think it creates competition, understandably, among states to get — just think New York, New Jersey or a situation like that where you’re both competing for the same customer so you can compete on tax rates and other things and a regulatory framework.

“I think that on the downsides of sports betting, they certainly exist, and I think we have to pay a lot of attention to that. I think where we’re hearing it in multiple categories, certainly you see incidents of underaged people betting. We have to pay a lot of attention to that, what’s potentially going on at college campuses, certainly people betting over their heads. But I just go back to this notion of a regulatory framework. You can track people when you have their credit cards. There’s a lot better ways than when it’s illegal to track them legally. So I think there’s direct ways of dealing with that.”