The topic of expansion in the NBA is one that's frequently brought up among fans and media members, and commissioner Adam Silver acknowledged the subject this week at the NBA's Board of Governors meeting.
Silver made clear that any NBA expansion was not imminent, given there were still some major hurdles to get past before the league would be ready to add a new franchise. One such area is the regional television distribution rights, and how games would be distributed within local markets of an upstart franchise.
"We would be malpracticing if we didn’t figure out how local regional television is going to work before expanding," Silver said, via Front Office Sports. "The notion that we would hand over a team into a city where we're not currently operating and say, 'You're going to have to figure out how you're going to distribute your games to your local fans,' doesn't make sense."
While expanding down the line is something the NBA would likely have interest in doing, Silver made clear that sorting out regional broadcasting rights would need to get done first.
In 2027–28, as many as 18 NBA franchises will be free of their current deals with regional sports networks and would thus be available to combine to create a national streaming platform. Considering the emphasis Silver put on not expanding until broadcasting rights are locked down, it's possible we won't see a new NBA franchise introduced until then, or even a bit afterwards.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Adam Silver Explains One Issue That NBA Must Figure Out Before Adding New Teams.