Update on Seattle Sonics NBA expansion reported by Bloomberg

There’s been little news on the potential return of a Seattle Sonics franchise in the month since a vote was approved to explore adding NBA expansion teams in Seattle and Las Vegas.

There is an update that came in the form of a report Monday by Bloomberg, though.

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In an article written by Randall Williams with the headline of “NBA’s Vegas, Seattle push gains steam with potential bidders,” the status of potential bids on expansion teams was addressed.

Per the article, the NBA has “received signs of interest from multiple investor groups,” though a Las Vegas team is drawing more interest from prospective owners than Seattle early on, “according to people familiar with the matter.”

“While no formal bids have been submitted, there’s been substantial outreach from investors,” reads the article.

As for the part about Las Vegas drawing more interest in Seattle, that isn’t as ominous as it may sound. The article says Samantha Holloway, the chair of the Seattle Kraken NHL franchise, “is preparing for a potential bid,” which has been known since the March vote by the NBA Board of Governors. The Kraken ownership group led by Holloway has long been seen as the front-runner to land a Seattle team should the NBA eventually expand beyond its current 30 teams.

Holloway’s desire to be part of the NBA’s return to Seattle seems pretty clear. She leads One Roof Sports and Entertainment, a new parent company of the Kraken ownership group that was notably announced the same week that the NBA voted to explore expansion. One Roof also entered an agreement to purchase additional equity in Climate Pledge Arena from Oak View Group and make the organization the majority owner of the building that would presumably be the home of a new NBA team in the city, which would undoubtedly give One Roof an advantage over any competing bids.

“We are ready to work with the Commissioner and the league, at their direction, to explore bringing the NBA back to Seattle,” a One Roof spokesperson said in a statement, according to Bloomberg.

While the building of Climate Pledge Arena under the roof of the former Seattle Coliseum and KeyArena wasn’t agreed upon until Seattle was well down the road to gaining an NHL expansion team, part of the impetus to make a push for an NHL team was to spur on an agreement to build an arena that could bring the NBA back to Seattle for the first time since the original Sonics were moved to Oklahoma City and became the Thunder in 2008.

Expansion for the NBA is still not a given at this point, as commissioner Adam Silver stressed last month. There is the potential the league could add just one team in either Seattle or Vegas instead of expanding to both cities, or ultimately decide against any expansion at this point.

“There are some owners who felt that we just frankly don’t need to expand,” Silver said after the Board of Governors vote in March. “They didn’t necessarily seem concerned going forward, but they felt we’re at a very solid place with the 30-team league we have now.”

That being said, ESPN NBA insider Shams Charania said last month there there is a “growing number of owners believed” to now be in support of expansion in Seattle and Las Vegas.

Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated and NBA on NBA also told Seattle Sports’ Bump and Stacy just ahead of the Board of Governors vote that he didn’t think Silver “would hold a vote like this if he didn’t feel like he had overwhelming support for expansion.”

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