The NBA to Seattle talk is a lot different this time around
I understand people are going to remain skeptical until they see the Sonics actually back in uniform, but for those (especially Seattle fans) who feel scorned by the NBA “dangling a carrot”, here’s a rough breakdown of why this is significantly different and to catch people up if they’ve been ignoring the news.
Prior failed attempts: The situations people are remembering was an attempt to relocate the Sacramento Kings to Seattle (failed, because the NBA never approved relocation and they found a local ownership group instead) and an attempt by a group that wanted to build an arena in SoDO (failed because of Port of Seattle killed the plan). This wasn’t the NBA “dangling a carrot”. Neither of these plans was ever as close as people seem to think.
League’s prior comments: Over the years Adam Silver has made casual comments about liking the Seattle market and eventually looking at it, but had consistently made it clear nothing was close. No expansion process was ever explored. The biggest issue, obviously, was Seattle didn’t have an NBA-ready arena.
Arena hurdle: This was solved when Climate Pledge opened in 2021. They’ve been NBA-ready since, but the NBA hasn’t yet been Seattle-ready
Media deal hurdle: They had consistently said they’d look at expansion after the media deal was finalized. That didn’t get resolved until July 2024. 11 years, 76 billion.
Valuation hurdle: Almost immediately after the media deal was finalized, Boston announced they were selling their team. This paused things as it was going to be a key point to determining expansion fee valuation. March 2025, they sold for 6.1 billion. That set pretty clean baseline for expansion fee. Coincidentally, when NBA last expanded in 2004 (with the Charlotte Bobcats), the expansion fee was \(300 million... very much in line with the most recent sale at the time: the Celtics, who sold for \)360 million in 2002. That meant the Bobcats were valued at about 83% of the Celtics, which felt reasonable for an expansion franchise. This, reasonably, would suggest the NBA could seek 5 bil per expansion team.
Slight hiccup (Euro league): I genuinely 100% believe they would have looked at expansion Summer 2025, but a couple things happened. 1, the Lakers went on sale in June 2025 and within weeks sold for 10 bil. That provided another key to determining expansion valuation. 2, several reports surfaced that a planned Euro-based league with Saudi money (and LeBron’s involvement) sent the league into panic-mode, and they sidelined any local expansion talks to focus all their board meetings on launching their own Euro league in partnership with FIBA. That’s now in advanced stages with the league launching in October 2027.
Ownership group hurdle: For Seattle specifically, you should know that Kraken majority owner, David Bonderman, was also a part-owner of the Boston Celtics and it’s been known he wanted to be part of a Seattle ownership group. He passed away, but his daughter Samantha Halloway has taken his place and has made it clear they have an NBA ownership group in place ready to pounce that presumably includes other members of the Kraken group like Tim Leiweke, Jerry Bruckheimer, etc.
Math hurdle: You might hear about how owners don’t want to give up revenue sharing to two more teams, but if you dig into the actual math, it becomes clear why reports say there’s a growing majority of owners who are on board. Let’s look at the math that I outlined a few months ago:
- The new TV deal is reportedly \(76 billion over 11 years, or about \)6.91 billion per year.
- Split among 30 teams, that’s around \(230 million per team annually.
\- Adding two new teams (Seattle and Vegas) dilutes that. 32 teams would mean each team gets roughly \)216 million instead. That’s a \(14 million drop in annual revenue per team.
\- Now, let’s say the expansion fee is \)5 billion per team, or \(10 billion total. Split among the 30 existing teams, that’s a one-time payout of about \)333 million per team. Even if you assume the full \(14 million annual hit lasts all 11 years (\)154 million total, but that’s actually split with players), the \(333 million more than offsets it. And if you conservatively invest that \)333 million at 5% over 11 years, that generates another ~$236 million in interest alone. So, all in, owners would still come out well ahead… and that’s without factoring in long-term upside from two strong new markets and any premium content value they add to future media deals.
But let’s point out that the reports today say that, likely based on the Laker’s sale, they are actually looking for expansion fees in the 7-10 bil range PER team. It’s even more overwhelmingly favorable for owners. At those valuations you’re now looking at 470-670 mil immediate payments per team (before investing) vs waiting 11 years to split 154 mil with players.
League hurdle: The final hurdle, of course, is that the league had never formally looked into expansion. At no point in the past 20 years have they done this. They didn’t kick off the process until September 2025 when the formed a committee to begin formally studying expansion. The news you’re now hearing in March 2026 is that the league is actually ready to vote on exploring potential bids.
The media deal is in place. The league is ready for expansion. The arena in Seattle is ready. The ownership group is ready. Assuming the money is there, I’d be really surprised if this doesn’t happen and we aren’t watching the Sonics in 2028-29 season (annoyingly, the 20 year anniversary of the OKC Thunder debut)