There’s zero reason for the Vegas team not to play at T-Mobile Arena outside of pure greed

Yeah, Seattle is more or less settled/ready to go.

I’m genuinely curious what’s going to happen with Vegas.

There’s T-Mobile arena ready to go, but have heard zero about their ownership group wanting to get involved.

There was the OVG proposal on the South Strip…

There was the AllNet arena proposal up near the convention center.

A year ago, If I had to place a bet (heh), I’d say the OVG one was most likely, but that was before Tim Leweike needed a pardon from Trump to avoid getting thrown in jail for bid tampering. So… who knows?

Well T-Mobile Arena is pretty new, having opened in 2016, but unless Bill Foley wants to own the expansion team, given he owns the Golden Knights and a minority stake in the arena, the new owner is going to want to build an arena for themselves, which is bafflingly stupid and piggish given how many ready venues Vegas has. Maybe MGM sells their joint share of the arena to the new owner, but no way is AEG doing so, nor Foley.

Not to mention Seattle has a built-in fan base and history. We are ready to be a part of the NBA again

Vegas has deep-pocketed billionaires.

Simmons mentioned this on a recent pod — there are multiple groups in Vegas that could pony up the $8B expansion fee the NBA will demand. There isn’t an obvious group ready to do that in Seattle (according to him). Not that such a group can’t be put together for a Seattle bid, but there’s aren’t as many prepared options at this point.

If you look across other sports, Vegas brings more than Seattle. Attendance is higher, tickets are pricier. Even if you’re on down/tank years, as long as you put up a fun atmosphere you’ll bring the tourists to fill seats.

Then Seattle, despite being a worse business for the owner, has the onus of a pre-existing franchise. Folks will be opniated on how the team should run, which colors and jersey should be used, old stars that need to be pampered…

For us fans, Vegas is a cancer that will just push gambling deeper while Seattle having a team back is amazing. But we aren’t the ones opening the wallet to purchase a 7b business.

Clips returning would have been a nice middle ground if they didn’t have a brand new stadium, I’ve always disliked major cities having two teams even if the market can support it

MLS is great

Kinda Crazy not to include MLS as a top 5 US League nowadays. It’s not the 2000’s anymore they’re a legitimate and competitive league compared to others around the world

Well shit why don’t they just move all 32 teams to California

But does Kansas City have an nba ready arena already operating and a group of investors willing to shell out $8 billion for a team?

why does kc?

Vegas and KC would be my vote

Likely no. By the time it gets to this point, it’s pretty much a done deal.

Dolan for sure. He has been against expansion for a while.

Other owners love using the threat of relocation to get new arenas and such and Seattle/Vegas has been a common relocation threat. Owners losing that leverage too.

Either tomorrow or Wednesday it’ll finally be officially

Yeah, it’s bizarre.

A year ago, I would’ve figured OVG was the front runner for Vegas. But they’re in a bit of chaos with the whole Tim Leiweke indictment/pardon thing. Is AllNet still trying to re-animate the corpse of their arena project? Is someone going to partner with Foley on sharing T-Mobile? What’s going on there?

Normally I’d say the best bet is sharing the major indoor arena, but Vegas is a verrrrry very strange animal when it comes to arena economics. I’m very curious to see what happens there.

Imagine being the first pick in the draft and you get sent to a team in Alaska

No thanks to all the above

I’ll concede that there are other markets that could support a team but the Dakotas are the example you use?! Lmao 

You need a TV Market and Big Population density.

Dakotas? Alaska? lol