Las Vegas Turns Sports Tourism Attention to the NBA

While Las Vegas continues to pursue the Oakland Athletics’ Major League Baseball franchise to potentially relocate as part of its sports tourism plan, the city could also be in line for a National Basketball Association franchise.

According to basketball insider Bill Simmons, the league could expand to 32 teams by adding franchises in Las Vegas and Seattle more sooner than later. Simmons made the remarks on his popular show, ‘The Bill Simmons Podcast.’

Moreover, Simmons, who served as an expert on ESPN for many years and started his own magazine, said he believes the Fenway Sports Group (FSG) ownership conglomerate – which features NBA superstar LeBron James as an investor – is interested in one of the potential expansion teams.

FSG owns the Boston Red Sox of MLB, Pittsburgh Penguins of the National Hockey League and Liverpool Football Club of soccer’s famed Premier League in England.

“(FSG has) been circling different NBA teams for a while,” Simmons said on the podcast.

Las Vegas, which had long been a draw for world championship boxing matches and sports bettors eager to place legal wagers at casinos, broke through the taboo of hosting professional sports in a gambling mecca in 1998. That was the year that Sin City was awarded a NASCAR race.

In 2017, the NHL expanded into Las Vegas with the Golden Knights, the first team to call the city home. Three years later, Vegas lured the Oakland Raiders National Football League team. Vegas is slowly establishing itself as the premier sports destination in the country.

Though the city does not have a basketball franchise, the NBA has loomed as a huge presence in Las Vegas. It has hosted the NBA All-Star Game there, as well as the NBA Summer League. Vegas has also been the home of hundreds of college basketball games and tournaments, and Amateur Athletic Union (high school) events.

“I don’t know what the possibilities would be, but I think Seattle and Vegas are going to have teams,” Simmons said. “That’s happening.”

Seattle had a franchise previously but the team known as the SuperSonics moved to become the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2008. Both Las Vegas and Seattle already have existing facilities – Vegas with T-Mobile Arena, where the Golden Knights play, and Seattle with Climate Pledge Arena, home of the NHL expansion Seattle Kraken.