NBA closing in on decision on expansion to Las Vegas
Steve Carp
Host · Writer
LAS VEGAS — The chase for an NBA expansion franchise in Las Vegas is close to reaching the finish line.
According to a report at ESPN.com, three groups are still in the running to acquire the rights to an NBA Las Vegas team. The three are Bill Foley, who owns the NHL Vegas Golden Knights and is reportedly collaborating with former Phoenix Suns owner and NBA executive Jerry Colangelo, Nancy Walton Laurie and her husband Bill Laurie, who live in Henderson, and former Milwaukee Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry along with Canadian businessman Steve Apostolopoulos.
The price tag, according to the ESPN.com report, will be anywhere from $12 billion to $13 billion. That would include the cost of construction of a new arena. If it comes in at the high end, that would be more than what was recently paid for the Los Angeles Lakers, one of the league’s premier franchises.
The process has been ongoing for several months as the various groups have undergone a thorough vetting process that looked into their financials as well as the individuals that would be involved at the ownership level.
It appears that is winding down and a decision is near, perhaps in the coming days. Commissioner Adam Silver hoped to be able to announce something by December. The news of Tuesday may accelerate that timeline.
The NBA Board of Governors would have to have final approval whether to expand. It takes three-quarters of the owners to approve any addition to membership. So 23 of the 30 current teams would have to say yes to expansion for it to move forward.
If approved, it is expected the team would begin play in 2028-29.
In addition to Las Vegas, the NBA has been exploring returning to Seattle, where the SuperSonics played from 1967 to 2008 before moving to Oklahoma City and becoming the Thunder.
Samantha Holloway, who heads the group that is seeking the Seattle NBA expansion team, owns Climate Pledge Arena, where the team would play.
A Las Vegas NBA franchise could play in T-Mobile Arena temporarily. Foley owns a 15 percent share of T-Mobile Arena but according to the ESPN report, he and Colangelo would partner on building a separate arena as would the other ownership groups that are bidding to join the league. Foley has previously said he plans to invest $340 million in upgrades to T-Mobile Arena, which is located just off the Las Vegas Strip and opened in 2016.
Colangelo is heading a group that called itself the “Las Vegas Jacks.” Included in the group are former NBA players Vinny Del Negro and Jay Williams, David Levy, who was the former president of Turner Sports, and Scott Colangelo, who is not related to Jerry Colangelo and oversees Prime Capital Financial.
Attempts to reach Foley Tuesday were unsuccessful.
The Lauries would also bring local ownership to a Las Vegas franchise were they to be successful. Nancy Walton Laurie is the daughter of Bud Walton, whose family founded and run Walmart. Her sister Ann is married to Stan Kroenke, who owns the Denver Nuggets among their sports holdings. The Lauries are worth a reported $17.5 billion according to Forbes.
Apostolopoulos, a Toronto businessman who runs Triple Group Companies, is worth nearly $4 billion. His family’s worth is estimated to be $9.6 billion. Lasry had a 25 percent stake in the Bucks and sold it in 2023 for $3.5 billion. He is CEO and co-founder of Avenue Capital Group, a private hedge-fund company whose Assets Under Management is reportedly worth $10.8 billion.
There’s two things that the finalists have in common. One, all are planning to invest in a new arena for the Las Vegas team to play in as part of the expansion franchise award. There have been numerous site proposals bandied about including from companies not in the bidding for the team itself but would build the arena for the team to play in.
Ideally, the league would probably prefer that whoever owns the team also own the arena in order for it to control all the basketball related revenue and maximize its opportunity to be profitable.
The other thread the three groups have in common is an established relationship with the league. Jerry Colangelo owned the Suns while Lasry owned the Bucks. And while the Lauries have not owned an NBA team, Bill Laurie formerly owned the NHL’s St. Louis Blues and Nancy Laurie’s sister owns the Nuggets, so the league probably knows of her through Ann Kroenke.
This has been a process which has been years in the making. It should reach its end in the next few days or weeks.
