Adam Silver opening the door to a Seattle's expansion team
Seattle Rumors
Mark Cuban: “OK, maybe you can make that argument that it is. But it always comes down to, is there some incremental value? Like, having somebody in Vegas, having a team in Seattle, as an example. Will we increase the pie big enough to more than compensate the money that we’re giving them? “ … I’m not saying it’s not possible. I kind of like the idea at a lot of levels, because I think Seattle would add incremental value in different ways.”
Before Milwaukee officials and the Bucks struck a funding agreement to build the arena, the NBA threatened to buy the franchise and sell it to one of two ownership groups, one in Las Vegas and the other Seattle, citing the aging BMO Harris Bradley Center where the Bucks played between 1988 and 2018. “I’m the co-owner of the Bucks and we love being in Milwaukee,” Wes Edens said. “If we had been forced to move the team, which we had not, Las Vegas was definitely one of the places that was on the list that we would have seriously considered.”
Amazon has bought the naming rights to downtown Seattle’s arena which will house a new NHL team and the Women’s National Basketball Association’s Seattle Storm, the company announced Thursday. The KeyArena will now be renamed to Climate Pledge Arena, in reference to Amazon’s ambitious climate plan, which was first unveiled by CEO Jeff Bezos last September.
Will an NBA team call Seattle home within the next five years? “I sure hope so. If there’s one thing that I could wish for our league structurally, I think it would be to get a team back to Seattle,” Warriors president Rick Welts told NBC Sports’ Tom Haberstroh on the “Habershow” podcast. “It’s obviously a really personal issue for me. I know what that team meant to that city — bringing the first professional championship to Seattle. It’s an amazing market. A lot of the future of the world is being envisioned there. It’s got a vibrant community that would really support an NBA team coming back.”
He, more than anybody, knows the NBA belongs in Seattle. “But the path is problematic,” he said. “The good news is the NBA’s business is really successful right now, and that means we have 30 teams operating without anyone feeling like they’re in a market where they can’t support NBA basketball. And the owners — I would say probably to their credit — have shown no interest. And the league hasn’t really promoted any expansion agenda. So how do you get a team there?”
