NBA Has Reconsidered Expansion Since Start Of Pandemic
Adam Silver admitted the NBA has looked at its analysis on the possibility of expansion beyond 30 teams. Until the COVID-19 pandemic severely changed the league's financial outlook, the NBA has postured as though it had little to no interest in expansion.
"I think I've always said that it's sort of the manifest destiny of the league that you expand at some point," Silver said during his annual preseason availability with reporters. "I'd say it's caused us to maybe dust off some of the analyses on the economic and competitive impacts of expansion. We've been putting a little bit more time into it than we were pre-pandemic. But certainly not to the point that expansion is on the front burner."
Silver has said there hasn't been a change in the league's position.
"You know, we're very appreciative of the markets that have indicated an interest in having an NBA team," Silver said. "One of the issues for the league office, and this comes up all the time in terms of competitiveness, it's not a secret that we don't have 30 competitive teams at any given time right now when you go into the season, measured by likelihood of ability to win a championship.
"One of our focuses as the league office is always on how do you create better competition. So that's one of the things that we continue to think about as we consider expansion. ... It's an economic issue and it's a competitive issue for us. So it's one that we'll continue to study, but we're spending a little bit more time on it than we were pre-pandemic."
Sports
via https://DMT.NEWS
, DMT.NEWS
