Making it through this is going to require cash that the NBA may not have, or may not have the ability to generate through traditional means. Which brings us back to the league's commitment to a team model. If the NBA is willing to be flexible on the number of teams it puts on the floor, expansion could solve many of its short-term financial issues.
With that in mind, let's dive into everything you need to know about expansion both on and off of the court, starting with the enormous economic ramifications of adding new teams. The simplest way to view expansion, from an economic perspective, is to think of it as the sale of a team that does not exist yet. A buyer or a group of buyers purchases a team not from an existing owner, but from the league itself.
As the league is nothing more than the 30 teams that make it up, the sale price is split evenly among those 30 teams, and because it is not considered basketball-related income, the teams keep every cent of that money for themselves. Players see none of it, and they have no say in whether or not the league can expand.
The price of an expansion team is not set in stone. Typically, it is a slight inflation of the perceived value of a team in a similar market. Based purely on potential profit, this was a slight overpay. Setting a market price in comes with some complications, though. Obviously the coronavirus pandemic's impact on the global economy has been pronounced, but the complications surrounding expansion pricing extend further than that.
The last three teams that have changed hands were sold at market-shattering prices. Five years ago, the NBA was in the middle of a valuation boom, but television ratings have since declined and the pandemic has put the league in a vulnerable position. They certainly wouldn't settle for those early-decade prices, but buyers wouldn't be willing to pay the premium that Steve Ballmer Clippers and Tillman Fertitta Rockets did, either.
Even given the current economic state of the world, interest is so great that the league would likely draw hefty fees. Remember that slight inflation of market value I mentioned earlier? It comes because the mere presence of a new team lowers the value of any existing ones.
Adding a new market adds very little value to the league as a nationally televised product because the primary drivers of ratings, such as the existing big-market teams and the postseason, remain unchanged.
But because national television revenue is shared evenly among all teams, those new teams cut into the income every other team would generate even if they aren't creating more of it. There are other revenue streams that are affected similarly, but television is the most important.
Think of the new owners as angel investors buying stock in the league as a whole. It infuses cash into the business immediately, but dilutes the long-term earnings for any previous investors.
And then there's the invisible cost of leverage. Leagues prefer to keep a deep stable of possible relocation markets in their back pocket to hold over their existing cities. If one of those cities doesn't want to play ball on a new arena, the NBA can merely point to what happened to Seattle as proof that it isn't bluffing when it threatens to move a team.
Filling in the best available markets takes them off the board as leverage. Sending a team back to a preexisting market greatly weakens the league's negotiating power as a whole. What's the harm in losing a team if you can just get a new one in a decade or two? Cover your ears, children; it's time for the dreaded "D" word. Adding new teams does not expand the existing player pool, so more teams wind up sharing the same amount of talent. That means inevitable talent dilution.
Accumulating top players becomes harder for teams when newer competitors for those players arise, but that distribution tends not to be even. Expansion teams tend to serve as roadkill for their contending counterparts. The Chicago Bulls won 72 games, but did so at a point in which six new teams had been added to the league within the previous seven seasons. Servicing all of those new markets wound up fattening the league up for slaughter at the hands of Michael Jordan.
There's also the prospect of realignment. The NBA currently has 30 teams. For the sake of balance, it cannot add a single team. It would be unfair to one conference if the other had fewer competitors, therefore, any expansion plan likely has to account for two new teams. Where those teams fall geographically means quite a bit. As we'll discuss, most of the best expansion markets would make more sense in the Western Conference. To compensate, that could allow for a current Western Conference team to switch over to the East.
Minnesota and Memphis both make geographical sense, and moving one of them would cut down on travel time for both themselves and the rest of the league. And then there's the matter of the schedule. The current system pits each team against their divisional opponents four times, their non-conference opponents twice, and then splits up the remainder of their conference opponents so that they play six of them four times and the remaining four three times.
Kansas City needs a billionaire. So does Las Vegas. Louisville, Kentucky, is also on the radar to potentially enter the NBA's horse race. And once the race is set, it'll be as simple as A-B-C-D on the expansion front. Skip Navigation. Key Points. NBA commissioner Adam Silver confirmed the league will consider expanding to 32 teams, which will help owners make-up for Covid losses. Kansas City wants the league to consider it in any possible expansion but the city faces obstacles to surpass Las Vegas.
In this article. It's as simple as A-B-C-D. That leaves one city for another team. But Kansas City's main problem: it's missing a billionaire. One billionaire could change things. For this reason, Silver noted that in the future, this particular city could become part of the expansion of the NBA. This is unlikely to happen soon. Economic issues aside, Mexico City has an astronomical crime rate.
In the past, some NBA players have refused to play in Canada and how will they feel about the opportunity to play in Mexico? Las Vegas has long supported the basketball culture by hosting the Summer League and supporting the University of Nevada local team.
Kansas City opened a modern arena back in Since then, Sprint Center has been waiting for its professional team. With the loss of franchises in Seattle and Vancouver, there is only one team left in the region — Portland. The third-largest city in Canada lost its team, the Grizzlies, in due to a lack of fan support. Since that time, Vancouver has grown significantly and now houses some of the most expensive real estate in the world. Louisville has a rich history of college basketball the Cardinals , but the city is probably too small for an NBA team.
Table of Contents. The eighth is a quandary. Would they try to get contracts off their books with Anderson and Dieng? Would they gamble that an expansion team wouldn't take a risk on a restricted free agent such as Melton? Would the potential of Guduric be a priority over Allen?
The Miami Heat have to expose only one player, which would come down to a decision between Silva and Okpala. Unprotected: Ersan Ilyasova, D. The Milwaukee Bucks could probably leave Thanasis Antetokounmpo exposed based on his impact on the court, but his brother is the team's superstar.
Ilyasova is expendable, and Brown will be an expendable restricted free agent. That would leave the decision between Wilson and perhaps upsetting Giannis. The Minnesota Timberwolves would have several players at the bottom of the roster who don't play regular minutes to expose. Pending restricted free agents Beasley and Hernangomez would be worth protecting. The team could swap out Reid for any of the others, but he logged more minutes than the rest. The New Orleans Pelicans would face a difficult choice in that they have a clear core of players and a couple of high-ranked prospects in Hayes and Alexander-Walker.
That would leave Melli on the outside, which would be disappointing given how well he complemented the team once Williamson got healthy. Miller is recovering from an Achilles tear, and both Jackson and Williams would be expendable as restricted free agents.
New York Knicks president Leon Rose would have a difficult set of choices to make in an expansion draft. How invested is he in young point guards Smith and Ntilikina? Can the Knicks get more value in a trade, or should they let them go to keep veterans Bullock and Ellington?
Can he make room for Dotson? The Oklahoma City Thunder have several players set to hit free agency or on options. They can protect every eligible player but one, which leaves Roby. If they weren't a playoff team this season, he might have gotten serious consideration, but he's been tremendous for the Thunder.
Birch and Clark would be victims of the numbers, especially Birch. The Orlando Magic can't expose only Iwundu and Clark since they are required to leave one guaranteed player unprotected. That means Birch, and then it'd be a decision between the two restricted free agents.
The Philadelphia 76ers wouldn't look to get rid of a big contract with Horford or Harris via expansion. Or maybe they would, but they'd probably protect their expensive core and some of the more productive younger players: Thybulle, Korkmaz and Milton.
0コメント