Finally catching up to the NFL and NHL

Paolo Banchero, Zach LaVine, DeJounte Murray, Jaden McDaniels, Kevin Porter Jr, Gary Payton II, Isiah Stewart, Tari Eason, Malachi Flynn, Corey Kispert, Matisse Thybulle, and honorable mention Michael Porter Jr (played at Nathan Hale) are all from Seattle/Fedway/Tacoma.

It’s a basketball city.

Seattle is still a huge hoops city. Happens when you live somewhere that rains 8-9 months a year. Still a bunch of active NBA players from the Seattle area.

The expansion draft is going to be absolute cinema

The league is loaded with talent. Every team has talent and everyone is trying to win with only a couple exceptions.

Being fair to them, the Seattle Storm never went anywhere, so they were still technically a professional basketball town. It’s only the men’s team that left.

I’ll believe it when I see it. Seattle is such a huge bargaining chip to force cities to fund new stadium builds that it’s going to take a miracle to actually get a team back in Seattle.

Rob Walton owns a percentage of the Dbacks and Lukas Walton bought a piece of the Bulls. Maybe they want to own every team in America

That’s her sister and Stan Kroenke.

You forgot the entire state of Arkansas.

But yeah, crazy how a Walmart heiress whose sister is married to a Kroenke might end up with the Vegas team. In a way, it’s fittingly trashy.

I’m sure it’s making them money

It’s due to the cash restrictions for owning teams. Very few people have the cash.

Crazy thing is how successful all these teams have been recently, while some rich owners have one or two teams, and they can’t even win with that. They’re definitely trusting and hiring the right people to run the ship:

Arsenal won the Premier League last season

Nuggets won the NBA title in 2023

Avalanche won the Stanley Cup in 2022

Rams won the Superbowl in 2022

Broncos won the Superbowl in 2016

A dying Vegas is still a bigger market than a lot of teams. And just by the sheer number of tourists that pass through daily, at 5/6pm I’m sure a good amount will check out the games seeing how Vegas doesn’t really come alive until 9/10pm anyways. Someone could watch a home game and then hit clubs and casinos right after. Sounds like a good time actually

Went to Vegas for Summer League in July. Place was absolutely packed altho some of that was also for the World Cup. I think what’s changed is that there aren’t as many people visiting butthose who are visiting are spending way more and are spending more on not just gambling but for all kinds of entertainment. I think what’s dead is the cheap/affordable Vegas. All the places my buds and I used to go to that had amazing food deals for instance are long gone

Maybe visitor numbers decreased but increased revenue probably made up for it.

Was in LV 2 weeks ago, it’s popping

Was in Vegas this past weekend. If that’s dead… then idek what it would like alive. The place was packed at all times.

Lol Vegas is more expensive than ever but over the last 5 years I’ve been to Vegas 6 times. Its never been dead

It is dying in a sense that tourism is down overall, but high roller clients are dropping in more than ever. The average person is being priced out of Vegas and it is no longer a place for cheap fun.

If youre a businessperson invested within Las Vegas and the area has been struggling financially, wouldnt you invest in a new sports team that could generate income?

It gives sports fans more reasons to travel to/stay longer in the city

Yeah, I look forward to Brian and his giant collars inheriting the team in the next 5-10 years.

On paper, I think Foley and Coangelo is the best. Foley has ties to Vegas with his ownership of the Golden Knights. He also understands how to run an expansion team that has succeeded in the market. You also combine this with Coangelo who has experience with the basketball aspect of operations.

Jerry colangelo used to own the suns and was team usa managing director for 15 years. He actually loves the sport of basketball which is what you’d ideally want from an owner. Can’t really speak on the other candidates

Colangelo and it’s not close. Lot of current fans would swap their owners for him

I don’t know but history tells me that the group with the closest ties to Epstein will likely get the rights to own the team.

It’s not an explicit requirement, but it seems like the only ownership groups with enough capital to cover the expansion fee have little reason to renovate T-Mobile arena rather than build something new that they’d own.

I wouldn’t be shocked if the same thing happened in Seattle even though Climate Pledge Arena is ready for NBA basketball. It’s almost a given at at least one ownership group making a bid will want their own arena. There’s plenty of private capital in Seattle these days, and arena costs are relatively small compared to franchise evaluations these days. It should be way easier to find arena financing now than it was back when the Supersonics left.

T mobile would need major renovations to be nba ready. A new arena is a better choice imo. We also need another nba sized arena in the city anyways imo.

Nice catch!

Just imagine how much an expansion team will be once the Lakers are worth $30B!

Maybe they can wait until Black Friday and there’ll be a discount?

I don’t actually think that’s true. Part of the speculation on why the Kushner brother bought the Lakers is because he couldn’t afford the Vegas bid anymore. The billionaires really like the idea of a Vegas team for some reason

Early on I did the math on two 5 bil expansion fees and I’m like “there’s no way the individual owners are gonna pass up a 300 mil windfall they can immediately invest” given how dramatically it outweighs what they’d give up in revenue sharing, but now it’s looking like it could be significantly more if they are getting like 10-13 bil per franchise. That’s like 650-830 million to each team.

New owners need real estate + gambling development opportunities in Vegas to recoup their enormous outlay for the franchise.

It has nothing to do with T-Mobile.

Lasry’s son must be eyeing a Nevada Senate run now.

Yah why would we want owners with experience and a history with the league..,

Some people were speculating in the other thread that Seattle basically has one bid on it (which is the Seattle Kraken ownership group), so the price tag is going to be lower and they probably won’t announce anything until this one gets sorted out.

Overpriced as fuk. Good luck to them.

Exactly why I pulled my bid at 10B. 13 was just outrageous to me personally.

Im assuming thats also including the price of the nee $1 billion arena, but still 11-12 billion is nuts

Reddit valuation experts come out of the woodwork