Adam Silver ‘would love’ Mexico City franchise but says US expansion is priority

The NBA hasn’t seen an expansion in decades, but speculation of it happening again has been confirmed by Adam Silver ever since the start of the year, when he admitted that it was on the league’s agenda for the upcoming seasons. Now that their intention is loud and clear, many cities from North America have been building up proposals. 

During this year’s NBA match in Mexico City, the commissioner revealed that he would “love to have a team” in the Mexican capital, but eventually conceded by saying that this idea is still “many years off.”

Silver attended the press ahead of last week’s match between the Miami Heat and Washington Wizards at Arena CDMX, which meant the NBA’s 33rd contest in this country since 1992. Even though he recognized the possibility, he later said that it “would be more difficult to expand to Mexico City than it would be to expand to US cities that have very publicly sought NBA teams”.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver said while he would "personally love to have" an expansion team in Mexico City, it's unlikely that it would leapfrog other U.S. markets.

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“Being direct, it’s highly unlikely Mexico City would jump above US cities that are currently under consideration,” Adam added. “But at the same time, once we move into expansion mode and start looking at all the considerations that go with expansion, I think that would then allow us to have more of a template to understand whether a city like Mexico City would be suitable.”

Silver knows that the Mexican capital would be good for business. “In many ways, Mexico City would be more additive,” Silver explained. “Flipping a switch in a country of 130 million people and 22 million people here in Mexico City. And so not just from a business standpoint, but in terms of generating more interest and enthusiasm around the game. So we’re going to continue to study it.”

Afterwards, the NBA commissioner was clear in stating that the door remains open for other cities, and explained what happened in Oklahoma City back in 2008, when the Seattle Supersonic sold their rights to the city in the Great Plains, where they became the Thunder.

“I don’t think prior to that, people had necessarily been talking about expansion in Oklahoma City,” Silver used them as an example of a long list of possibilities. “So sometimes you can be surprised by things that happen.”

Shaquille O’neal admitted to be considering NBA ownership with LeBron and Mark Cuban as his potential business partners

Ever since Shaquille O’Neal retired over a decade ago, we’ve been hearing about his interests of potentially buying and partially owning an NBA franchise. However, he’s not the only one looking to but into this luxurious opportunity, so he’s had to change his approach over the years.

The Hall of Famer even admitted that he was considering to purchase a stake in Phoenix before new owner Mat Ishbia came in at the start of the year, but he recalled pulling out of the race when he heard that even Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was also interested. Shaq simply knew he couldn’t’ compete.

During a recent episode of the The Big Podcast with Shaq, the former athlete hinted that he’s now considering to join billionaire Mark Cuban and even LeBron James as business partners, as all three individuals have shown interest in NBA ownership.

Even the ex-Mavericks executive admitted that he’d value having a partner like Shaquille. “I’d have to make it okay with my current partners, but, yeah, if my kids were like, ‘All right, we’re set. We don’t… want whatever.’ And it was Shaq. F**k Yeah. I would look at making a comeback. … So, you know, we get me, you, LeBron, we might have something there,” Cuban shared.