Samson: Why NBA may expand within the next three seasons
Samson is confident new teams are coming to the league in the near future
NBA commissioner Adam Silver spoke with the media ahead of Opening Night and was asked about expansion, giving an answer with a different tone on the topic than in year's past. Expansion is now a possibility, and it has everyone talking about what cities deserve a team and, if it were to happen, what it would look like.
David Samson joined in on the conversation on his podcast, "Nothing Personal with David Samson" Tuesday to discuss why expansion is now a possibility and his thoughts on if it will actually happen.
The coronavirus pandemic forced leagues to take a hard look at their sports. With no fans in the stands at games, teams are not bringing in as much money as they normally would. Samson says this issue is the reason for the expansion talk.
"It got me thinking, does he think expansion makes sense? Or did the other owners say to him, 'We need money and the best way to get money is to do expansion,'" Samson questioned.
Owners would likely be looking for a way to make up for the losses, Samson said, and this would be one obvious way to do so.
"What about relocation or expansion? Is that possible? Do we think that the NBA ... are going to expand or allow a team to relocate?" the podcast host asked. "Because when a team relocates then there's a relocation fee and that fee gets split amongst the teams. And if there's expansion, and let's say it's a billion dollars to expand, that's an extra let's say $35 million that could come to [teams]."
Silver discussed that competitiveness is an issue, wanting to make sure the games stay interesting and fans are seeing top-level basketball. He said they would weigh the question of competitiveness with the need for money, but Samson says money always wins.
Giving his prediction for the future, Samson said, "Expansion in the NBA is going to happen in the next three seasons."
"And the reason I know this is that as this season starts ... there are economic issues facing NBA teams we are now in season two of Covid, but this is going to impact teams in the NBA way more this year than it did last year," he concluded.
