An NBA franchise in Vegas has been on the cards for years now.
Some commentators have suggested that the desert city’s outsized tourist demographic would make it hard to establish a reliable fanbase, with impacts on revenue. But the commercial success of the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders, whose revenue was $832m at the last count, has put paid to that notion.
The price tag is steep. Adam Silver and the rest of the NBA executive team are expected to demand between $7bn and $10bn for the two expansion franchises it hopes to launch, the other being in Seattle.
But unlike in the English Premier League, where even the biggest clubs routinely post eight or even nine-figure losses, the economics of owning an NBA franchise are clear.
Everybody makes money. The NBA know that a rising tide lifts all boats – they don’t go into any business that isn’t in the interests of the entire league system.
For Bill Foley, who owns Premier League side Bournemouth, that would be a welcome breath of fresh air.
He has owned the Cherries, as they are known, since 2022. In that time period, he has spent nearly £350m from his own pocket.
On the pitch, the club has been successful. Bournemouth, the Premier League’s smallest club by geographical population, finished 6th last season, ahead of the likes of Chelsea and Saudi Arabia-backed Newcastle United.
Now, Foley, who is very familiar as a destination for sports investment through his ownership of the Vegas Golden Knights of the NHL, wants to buy a Vegas NBA franchise.
The billionaire, 81, has announced that he will bid for the expansion team. He wants them to play at the T-Mobile Arena, where the Knights also play.
He has explored the possibility of making renovations to the arena worth $300m in order to facilitate an NBA team there.
If the franchise fee is towards the top end of the spectrum, it could be the most expensive deal in sports team history, surpassing the $10bn valuation that Mark Walter’s takeover of the Lakers implied.
The NBA is in expansion mode generally, with Silver forging ahead with plans to launch NBA Europe in 2027, providing $3bn in start-up capital in the process, in part to tempt Europe’s biggest soccer clubs to buy into the concept.
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