While the cities of Seattle and Las Vegas have been waiting in the starting blocks for several years, the NBA is still in no hurry to move to 32 teams.
Before looking into the matter, Adam Silver first responded that he was waiting for the new contract related to TV rights to be concluded. And now that the Great League has signed a $76 billion contract with its broadcasters, the big boss of the NBA justifies his reluctance by other parameters.
“This is one of the reasons why expansion is not as straightforward as some might think. There is a point of view that I am often confronted with, according to which expansion is a cash machine” he explains to Sports Illustrated. “That’s not the case. First of all, it's basically selling league stock. Because you're entering into new national television deals, you now have two new partners, and so you're splitting the money two more ways. There is also a dilution of talent. This is one of the reasons we haven't expanded recently, as we strive to create a more competitive league. »
Same caution in the WNBA?
Clearly, Adam Silver repeats that the addition of two franchises, and therefore 30 players, will make the league less competitive with the dispersion of talent. However, the expansion of the WNBA, which only had 12 teams this season, is intensifying with a move to 15 franchises from 2026. But here again, Adam Silver remains cautious.
“I know that WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert's phone and mine have been ringing off the hook over the last few months from people interested in owning or investing in WNBA teams.” he admits. “When we started the league 28 years ago, our goal was to have a WNBA team affiliated with every NBA franchise. It's clear that we've had some ups and downs along the way, and there may be markets where the NBA doesn't have a presence that are of great interest to the WNBA. At the same time, our goal would be to have a robust league roughly equivalent to the NBA. Just because there is so much interest doesn't mean we should expand that quickly. We should be careful and thoughtful in how we do it.”
