NBA Is Missing Out On A Lot Of Corporate Sponsors By Not Being in Seattle, Says Mark Cuban
In the last couple of months, there has been an uptick in chatter in the possibility of expansion in the NBA.
In December 2020, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver shared with ESPN’s Rachel Nichols that expansion was “inevitable.” However, he did say that expansion was not on the front burner right now.
About a month later, Silver revealed the reported $2.5 Billion franchise buy-in fee was a little low. At f=”https://www.sportico.com/leagues/basketball/2021/adam-silver-nba-expansion-fee-1234620717/” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>Sportico’s NBA valuations event in January of 2021.
“The commissioner was “not ready” to confirm the number of teams or the price point the league would seek if it were to add clubs. He said it “doesn’t feel like the right time” to focus resources or attention on future growth with the league still trying to navigate the pandemic. But Silver did say that “clearly [the] valuations [show] some of the reported numbers [for expansion fees] are very low in terms of the value at which we would expand.”
Joseph Tsai bought the Brooklyn Nets for a professional team record of $2.3 billion, and he also shelled out another $1.1 billion to purchase the Barclay’s Center in August of 2019.
Last week, as a guest on One37 FM, Dallas Mavericks Chairman Mark Cuban was asked what is the NBA missing by not being in Seattle.
“A lot of corporate sponsorships and a lot of great fans. A lot of people who miss the NBA. So, we are missing a lot by not being there,” said Cuban.
“A lot of people that miss the NBA, so we are missing a lot by not being there. Oklahoma City has been a great market I can’t take anything from them. And I am not saying anything that I have not already said before, but I think there is a future where Seattle has a team. I just don’t know when.”
Recently, Steve Kerr shared that the Sonics not being in Seattle is like the Warriors, not Oakland or The Bay Area.
“To me, it is like not having the Warriors in Oakland or the Bay Area. To me, those two franchises were like mirror images for a long time,” said Kerr.
He would continue by saying that he thought it was a travesty when the Sonics left for Oklahoma City. However, he revealed that he hoped the NBA would return to Seattle at some point.
Seattle hosted the NBA SuperSonics between 1967 and 2008.
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