Nevada Week | NBA to Las Vegas | Season 6 | Episode 1 | PBS

-Little middy comes off.

Wemby.

Okay, now.

Now you’re showing me something special.

-30 NBA teams are in Las Vegas for NBA Summer League.

When might Las Vegas add its own NBA team to the mix?

That’s this week on Nevada Week.

♪♪♪ Support for Nevada Week is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt.

-Welcome to Nevada Week.

I’m Amber Renee Dixon.

First… it was the NHL then the WNBA, the NFL, and now MLB pending Major League Baseball’s approval of the Oakland Athletics’ relocation.

So when will the NBA join Las Vegas’ Major League pro sports lineup?

We will explore that ahead.

But first, a check on the Republican primaries in the race for President and U.S. Senate.

For that we go to Gabby Birenbaum, Washington, D. C. correspondent for The Nevada Independent.

Hi, Gabby.

-(Gabby Birenbaum)Hi, Amber.

Thanks for having me.

-Yes.

Thank you for joining us.

All right.

Aead of the Presidential election in 2024, only two Republican candidates for President have visited Nevada.

The first was Florida Governor Ron DeSantis; the second, former President Donald Trump.

As you reported, at this time in 2015, eight different Republican Presidential hopefuls had already visited Nevada.

So why so few this time around in this swing state?

-I know it’s been pretty disappointing, and I think there’s a few explanations for it.

From my conversations with elected Republicans and Republican strategists in the state, it seems that in 2015, at this point for the 2016 election, the race was considered really wide open.

You know, Trump had yet to really take hold of the Republican Party.

There were a number of serious candidates at that time.

If people remember back, Jeb Bush was perhaps considered the front runner.

There was Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, of course Trump.

And so it was a pretty wide open primary in which a lot of candidates thought making an investment in Nevada would be a worthwhile pursuit.

This time you have a much different Republican Party.

You have a party that Trump has had control of for, at this point, nearly eight years.

He’s running again.

He was the candidate in the last two elections.

He won the Nevada Primary among Republicans.

Back then it was a caucus, but he won the Nevada Caucus the last two times around.

Obviously, in 2020 he didn’t have a challenger.

But he has the support of notable Republicans in the state, including a lot of members of the state party.

I mean, there hasn’t been an official endorsement, but he really went out of his way during his rally to thank Michael McDonald, the chair of the state party.

He shouted out Jim DeGraffenreid who’s the National Committeeman.

He shouted out Sigal Chattah who’s the committeewoman.

He really knew these members of the Nevada Republican Party, the elected officers of the party.

He clearly maintained still a close relationship with Michael McDonald.

A lot of the party figures were very involved in his efforts to try and overturn the 2020 election.

A lot of them are even facing legal repercussions for having done so.

But it appears based on their participation in his rally and polling that we see in the state that they maintain that close relationship.

And that’s certainly, I think, if other candidates are looking at the state, that’s something that they would be nervous about.

-Now, some of the endorsements that Donald Trump does not yet have include Nevada Republican Governor Joe Lombardo, as well as Republican U.S. Representative Mark Amodei of Nevada, but they haven’t endorsed anyone at this point.

However, according to your reporting, because of that lack of endorsement, it is, quote, another sign of Nevada’s inconsequentiality at this point.

How so?

-Yeah, I think I talked to Congressman Amodei, he said the only candidate that he’s spoken to thus far has been Governor DeSantis.

So I think part of that just might be a lack of outreach from the campaigns at this point towards those potential Nevada surrogates.

And I also think for Governor Lombardo, he is probably the biggest name Republican in the state.

That’ll be an important endorsement when and if he chooses to endorse.

Congressman Amodei in 2015 and ’16 went through multiple candidates.

He first was on team Jeb Bush.

He went to Rubio.

Ultimately of course, he ended up with Trump.

And so I think it’s a combination of them perhaps biding their time and just a lack of outreach as we’ve seen throughout this Presidential election so far.

-Okay.

I want to move on to Nevada’s U.S. Senate race.

Right now, current Democratic Senator Jacky Rosen running for reelection.

The Republican primary is going to determine who she will face.

And now throwing his hat in the ring is retired Army Captain Sam Brown.

Last year he ran in the GOP primary against Adam Laxalt.

Lost.

Why does he think he has a shot this time around?

-Yeah, I mean, I think last time he was really running as an insurgent.

Laxalt had the backing of a lot of notable figures.

He has a famous last name in the state.

He had the benefit of having run before and won statewide office when he was Attorney General.

This time around, I think it’s much different for Sam Brown.

He has the support of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

That’s run by Senator Steve Daines from Montana.

Those are Senate Republicans looking to avoid the mistakes of the ’22 election in which candidates like Laxalt ended up losing in winnable states like Nevada.

And so I think they were actively involved in recruiting Sam Brown.

They’re going to be actively involved in supporting him.

And so this time around I think to national Republicans he’s the favorite candidate.

And so he has that going for him.

-Okay.

And as you and I spoke about on the phone, it is different for his primary competition in that race.

Former State Assemblyman Jim Marchant, he ran for Secretary of State in 2022. Who is the support he’s getting?

-Yeah, so Jim Marchant definitely maintains a base in the state among, I think, a lot of what is that Trump base.

You know, at his launch event, several notable right wing radio hosts and media personalities attended.

Both the chairmen of the Clark County Republican Party and the Washoe County Republican Party were there.

I think that shows that he still maintains a base of support among, again, that state party that’s also been supporting Trump.

And so in that sense, especially given that Sam Brown has only lived in Nevada for five years, Jim Marchant might have a leg up in terms of statewide support; although, it’s going to be hard to contend with Sam Brown’s ability to fundraise potentially off of the back of that NRSC endorsement.

-All right, and the primary difference between these two candidates on campaign issues would be?

-It’s hard to say.

You know, my colleagues interviewed Sam Brown earlier this week, and they gave him an opportunity to sort of distinguish himself from Jim Marchant.

And he said, I think just the fact that we’re both in the race is an indictment of Jacky Rosen.

He didn’t want to go there.

So to me I think the biggest difference thus far, Marchant has already endorsed Trump.

He’s popped up at a few Trump events.

Sam Brown has yet to endorse a Republican candidate.

So I think if we can draw a distinction right now, it might be that support for Trump.

-As well as Jim Marchant being a denier of the results of the 2020 election.

-Yes, that’s a good point.

Jim Marchant has been a very prominent election denier.

That was his platform when he ran for Secretary of State in 2022.

Sam Brown has definitely not been as far on that issue.

When we asked him about it recently, he didn’t want to relitigate issues from three years ago.

His point throughout has been that he wants more faith in Nevada elections, but he hasn’t gone as far as Jim Marchant who clearly believes that the election was stolen.

-Gabby Birenbaum of The Nevada Independent , joining us from Washington, D.C., thank you for your time.

-Thank you.

-To basketball now.

During the NBA Finals Basketball Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal asked NBA Commissioner Adam Silver whether expansion to Seattle and Las Vegas was a possibility.

Silver’s response was, Yes, it is a possibility.

So when might Las Vegas get a team, and what could keep that from happening?

Kurt Badenhausen, a sports valuations reporter at Sportico joins us now.

And Kurt, the earliest you think an NBA team would be based in Las Vegas is?

(Kurt Badenhausen) I’m gonna say 2028.

I think I think that’s maybe not as soon as some Las Vegas residents want.

But I would say it’s more than a possibility.

I would say probability.

Las Vegas, Seattle, certainly front and center in terms of the two markets the NBA is looking at.

But the big thing the NBA has to take care of ahead of time is its TV deal.

The two big things were a new collective bargaining agreement, which it knocked out agreement between the owners and the players in April, and now we have the new TV deal that has to be done.

That will help set the price because teams will know the economics that they’re getting into.

And then that will also allow for to set a timeline.

Adam Silver has been very clear: Nothing’s happening before the TV deal gets done.

But as people know, this is on the radar.

So people are getting their ducks in a row right now as it is so they’re ready to hit the ground running when the expansion process starts.

-Can you explain to our viewers who may not understand how the CBA the collective bargaining agreement and the media rights helps determine the timeline.

Why did those have to be established?

How do they help in determining when it’s feasible to have an expansion team?

-Well, those were the two major economic forces that the NBA had to check off its list before it could turn to expansion, which has been a long time.

We’re talking more than 20 years since the last expansion franchise.

And we’ve seen valuations go through the roof.

You’ve had three billion-dollar-plus sales, three different teams over the last 12 months.

So there’s a huge appetite for NBA franchises.

And I think we’ve kind of known that the NBA was ready to go to 32 teams but, again, they could not until you have these long-term agreements, both in terms of the labor agreement with the players, which determines how much money flows to the owners versus the players, as well as the TV deal.

There’s– it’s a huge sum right now, $2.

7 billion on average a year.

We’re talking about 100% increase, as much as a 200% increase in the best case scenarios.

And so that’s, once that deal gets done, the current deal runs out after the ’24-’25 season.

So we would expect a deal to be done over the next 12 to 18 months.

That’s the timeline that most experts are thinking about, and most media experts.

So once that is done, they will set up an expansion subcommittee that will lay out the exact process, start talking to people because you need– three things are important to have in place.

You need the right owner, you need the right building, and you need the right market.

That’s the three key pillars of any expansion franchise.

-And we are going to be talking about a potential arena with our next guests coming up.

But with you, Kurt, Commissioner Silver does certainly seem in favor of expansion.

But he has to convince the NBA team owners as well and get their approval.

Why may they not want to expand?

-Well, there’s an argument to be made that expansion has always been a bad bet for owners, because it dilutes their stake in the business.

There’s a group of NBA owners.

I’d say all of them are very bullish on the future of the NBA.

And there’s a group of them that don’t want to give up 1/32 or 2/32 of that pie moving forward, because they think that dilutes their equity stakes in things like NBA China, NBA Africa, and the different businesses that the NBA owns.

And then also what you’re going to have to figure is that you’re gonna lose a slice, importantly, of that TV money, but as well as sponsorship money and the shared merchandise money.

And so owners think, Is that one-time check I’m gonna get going to be worth the money I’m going to lose if I’m going to own this thing for the next 30 years?

If I’m an owner on my way out, I sign off on this in a second because I’m going to get a 4- or $500 million check on my way out the door.

But if you’re thinking about owning a team for the next 20-30 years, you’ve got to make the calculus, Does this make sense for me personally?

Any new expansion team and city has to be a creative to the NBA business.

So you think about– you would think markets like Seattle markets, like Las Vegas, really help grow the overall pie.

And that’s what owners are going to be looking at in terms of signing off on these deals.

-There’s this pie or this pot of money that the NBA team owners all share.

And so if two more teams are added, then their share of that pie is lessened.

But as you just said, there’s reason to want to expand to Las Vegas and Seattle.

Now, for a potential owner of an NBA team in Las Vegas, what kind of expansion fee might they have to pay to get that team?

-Well, the Phoenix Suns just sold for $4 billion.

So that’s probably a good starting point.

I think, you know, the NBA owners are– I don’t know if they’re gonna take less, the current owners.

You know, 3 is the bare minimum.

Partly you have to think about what a venue is going to cost, and we saw this with Las Vegas and Major League Soccer.

They had trouble because the cost of what the venue was going to be in Las Vegas for Major League Soccer.

MLS had trouble getting someone to commit to that huge expansion fee, because an arena was going to– because a new stadium was going to cost so much.

Oak View has already laid the groundwork for a new facility in Las Vegas at a very big price tag.

And so we’ll see if that happens.

But I think you’re probably talking about a $4 billion expansion fee once, eventually, the media deal gets done.

-And for perspective, the last NBA expansion team was the then Charlotte Bobcats in 2004.

That was $300 million.

Wow!

Is it possible that the league would only expand by one team instead of two?

And if so, who has the advantage, Las Vegas or Seattle?

-Sentimentally Seattle has the advantage.

Ever since the team left for Oklahoma City, there’s been this hole and this– It is a very strong fan base that felt like this team was torn for them.

So I guess I would tilt it to Seattle slightly.

Long term, I think the NBA definitely does two teams.

The only reason to do one at a time is to potentially goose the price.

Because if you only have one out there, it’s simple supply and demand.

Somebody they want wants to get in there quickly.

But I think you will have two groups–one in Las Vegas, one in Seattle–both willing to meet the asking price that the NBA is going to be looking for on an expansion fee.

-All right.

Kurt Badenhausen of Sportico, thank you for joining Nevada Week.

-Thanks so much for having me on.

-Now, if Las Vegas does get an NBA team, where will it play?

A developer called Oak View Group says it’s building an NBA-ready arena and a new resort south of the Las Vegas Strip.

-On this arena, I’m not asking anybody for any money.

We’re not going before the state.

We’re not going before the county.

We will go build it on our own privately.

-Joining us now to expand on that possibility as well as why else he thinks NBA expansion could be next for Las Vegas is Sam Gordon, sports columnist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Sam, welcome.

-(Sam Gordon) Amber, I appreciate you having me.

-All right.

So Oak View Group, what makes this developer and its proposal different from all that we’ve seen come and go in Las Vegas?

-I think it’s the extensive track record.

They have a big portfolio of arenas, of venues that they’ve managed for several years now.

And talk about Seattle, they were behind the renovations of the old KeyArena, now Climate Pledge Arena, where the Seattle Kraken play.

So they know what they’re doing.

They are tried and true at this.

There’s a lot– there’s a lot to show that.

And the fact that it’s a privately funded arena, too, obviously helps.

That’s a lot easier to get that thing done than it would be with public funding, as we’re kind of seeing with the A’s with what they’re going through and kind of with that.

So it’s totally viable.

They have a track record.

They have executives that know sports, that know this market.

Randy Morton formerly ran the Bellagio, right, worked with the Foley Group.

So he knows this market.

He knows entertainment here as well as pretty much anybody, right, given his history of the Bellagio.

And then Marc Badain, so instrumental in bringing the Raiders here and getting Allegiant Stadium done in working with that transition from Oakland to Vegas.

So you’ve got the sports angle covered.

You got the casino element covered.

You have the expertise, the institutional knowledge of what it takes to bring a team here, of what succeeds here, of what works and what doesn’t work.

So those two, having them aboard and kind of anchoring this project, is massive for Oak View master for Las Vegas and potentially an eventual NBA team here.

-The Foley Group being Bill Foley, the owner of the Vegas Golden Knights, his Entertainment Group.

So I’m thinking, I imagined some of our viewers might be thinking, Okay, nice to have a new arena, but why not utilize T-Mobile Arena?

-Yeah, that’s a great question, Amber.

T-Mobile Arena, obviously built with basketball locker room.

So you know, the versatility is there.

We’ve seen preseason games; of course, the college basketball, a lot of college basketball, non-conference games coming to T-Mobile Arena.

Obviously, the Golden Knights do very well there.

But it’s a lot of dates, it’s a lot of sharing, and you might not necessarily want to do that.

It’s not a prerequisite to share an arena with a hockey team, per se.

And if you have an ownership group or, you know in this case, Oak View willing to privately fund a brand new place exclusively for an NBA team, like that’s a much better deal for the NBA team as opposed to having to work with T-Mobile arena, having to work with MGM with the Golden Knights to find a date.

So if it’s available, like why not?

-Now, as you reported in October, LeBron James said he would love to bring a team here.

Why is that significant outside of him being an NBA superstar?

-Yeah, well, he has an investment stake in the Fenway Sports Group, which has an extensive ownership portfolio.

Obviously, the Boston Red Sox are the one– the team that come to mind here, Major League Baseball, also the Pittsburgh Penguins, and then Liverpool in the English Premier League.

So he already has some experience in ownership, and he’s a billionaire, right?

Now it’s that last year, so just his– if you want an expansion team, you want to build excitement.

Is there a better kind of face of a new team than LeBron James?

I don’t think so.

He’s been vocal about it several times publicly.

So there’s gonna be other ownership groups, I’m sure, that are interested in coming in, given the opportunity here.

But if you’re the NBA, what’s the most attractive?

I don’t think it gets any bigger than Lebron James?

-Well, we got to talk about the WNBA as well, the World Champion Las Vegas Aces.

What role do they play in bringing an NBA team here?

-Well, I think they’ve just shown that you build a winner, that the fans are gonna come support it and want to be a part of it.

And this season, attendance at an all-time high average attendance season, ticket renewal rates, they’re 19 and 2 at the All-Star break.

They’re the best team in the league.

And they’ve just kind of showcased what you can build in terms of having your franchise being the first professional basketball franchise here.

So whether the NBA chooses to follow them, and I ultimately think it will, they’ve kind of set the standard for excellence in basketball here in Las Vegas at the professional level with what they’re doing.

So definitely kind of, you know, potential precursor.

But even standing alone, they’ve accomplished quite a bit already in just a short time.

-They sure have.

And the Aces by the way, as you wrote are, quote, the only superteam in the WNBA.

What makes you say that?

-Yeah, so very interesting offseason, right, with the New York Liberty loading up to try and compete with the Aces, but the Aces played the Liberty and blew them out.

And just what they have that the Liberty doesn’t have at least right now is the chemistry, is the reps, is years of experience playing together, playing in big games.

And if all things are equal, talent being equal, I do think the Aces are a more talented team kind of top to bottom.

Chemistry and execution and togetherness and team sports, I think always is kind of the tipping, you know, the determining factor in when things are equal.

So not only are the Aces a better roster, but they have more talent, they have more chemistry, they’ve been through it, and the Liberty are going to have to take some time to develop that.

You can expedite that process.

So I think we’ve seen kind of the championship DNA at various junctures this season, and we’re definitely going to see it in the postseason, I think, when that gets going in the fall.

-And the Aces have a league leading, four All-Star selections, which will be playing in the All-Star game at Michelob Ultra Arena.

Now, MGM used to own the ACES before they sold the team to Raiders owner Mark Davis.

Wasn’t there a thought at one time that MGM was buying the Aces as a precursor to owning an NBA team, potentially?

-In some ways for sure.

I think there’s definitely– there was definitely an interest from MGM to acquire an NBA team.

And having an opportunity to get in that space with the Aces, I think, was kind of a way to get that going.

But as you mentioned, right, they sold the Aces to Mark Davis.

And MGM for as experienced as they are an entertainment and building what we have here in Las Vegas in so many ways, not experienced at running a franchise, per se.

So you see Mark Davis take over.

His experience running the Raiders is just institutional knowledge of sports and how leagues work and how it– what it requires to run a business has helped take the franchise to the next level.

But definitely MGM kind of got the ball rolling here with the Aces of course being here and continuing the dialogue around bringing an eventual NBA franchise as well.

-As Tim Leiweke the chairman of Oak View Group said, he does acknowledge MGM is competition in this area of bringing an arena here or of possibly housing an NBA team.

But I wonder if they’re also, you know, an ownership potential.

-I mean, I think there’s gonna be a lot of different groups.

When you have– when you talk about expansion, the opportunity here, the way the Las Vegas market is grown, it’s a lucrative opportunity.

So I wouldn’t write them off by any means.

I mean, they don’t necessarily have the glitz and the glam, I think big picture for MBA, that an ownership group led by LeBron James would have, but they’re MGM.

You associate them with Las Vegas.

They go hand-in-hand.

Of course they have the resources and capabilities if they want to get involved, and it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if once that bid came became available if they kicked the tires and saw what it looked like.

-So we don’t know where a Las Vegas NBA team would play just yet.

But we do know that they will not be playing at Sphere.

That is at least what its COO told your coworker Rick Velotta.

Sphere, though, did put on quite an LED show for Summer League, which we have some video of.

About summer league, Adam Silver said, quote, all of our events, when we’re thinking about going to so-called neutral markets, Las Vegas is always in the top group of cities we can consider, end quote.

So with an NBA team here, they get rid of that neutral site.

Do they really want to get rid of that neutral site?

-Yeah, I think so.

I think just kind of big picture, you know, considering expansion here and permanently having roots in this market year round is the next step.

I mean, it would be one of the next steps, and that’s why they’re discussing expansion.

And you take a look, Amber, at the history of the NBA and Vegas, goes back a long time.

The Utah Jazz, I think, had a cup of coffee here in the early 1980s.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar broke the NBA all-time scoring record here.

There was a playoff game here in the early 90s, of course the All-Star game, and Adam Silver has always been one of the most ardent believers in this market even when the perception was kind of wavering based on some of the stuff that happened around the 2007 All-Star game.

He remained tried and true that Las Vegas has a lot of value.

Summer League here, of course the NCAA tournament coming in December, the Aces, there’s a ton of professional basketball here now that the NBA is connected to and expansion, again, the logical next step given the how strong the ties are already.

-And I’m glad you brought that in-season tournament up.

They just announced that they’re going to have their first ever in-season tournament this season, the semifinals and finals of which will be here in Las Vegas.

How significant is that?

-Yeah, I think it remains to be seen how significant it is for the NBA at large, but for Vegas, for us in Las Vegas, it’s massive, right?

These are gonna be the most significant basketball games played in Las Vegas yet.

Not Summer League, which is fun but for young players and for rookies and whatnot.

Not preseason games where, you know, teams are trying to figure out who’s making the roster, and those are more so for fun.

These are gonna be regular season games where there’s going to be stakes for the players, financial incentives to win this tournament, trying to create some urgency in a regular season.

And I feel like it has lacked some urgency the last few years with load management, some injuries to star players, and just kind of the difference in the level of play in the postseason, the regular season.

So understandable why the league wants to drum up some interest in the regular season.

And like personally, right, what better market than Las Vegas, again, strengthening those ties and bringing meaningful games to Vegas in December in the heart of the regular season.

-And the last thing, a lot of the headlines surrounding Summer League has been around the Spurs’ number one pick, Victor Wembanyama.

You said he made quite a splash, a significant appearance despite not performing so well, at least on offense.

Why was it so significant?

-The potential that he has as a player, right, seven-three, seven-four.

We’ve never quite seen anybody with his skill set at that size, his ability to block shots in defense and to cover so much ground, his ball handling, his shooting, and it’s been a long time coming.

We’ve been preparing for Victor Wembanyama to play in the NBA for nine months.

He comes over for France.

His season just ends, what, three weeks ago, a month ago, and he still showed up and he still played and he’s still participated.

I think that in and of itself speaks volumes about his competitive nature first and foremost, but also his understanding of what he can potentially mean to the next generation of the NBA.

So fans were there hours early.

There was tons of chatter throughout.

It was buzzing in a way that I’ve never seen NBA Summer League buzz.

So it’s just, again, a continuance of what this market means and the understanding of how valuable Summer League is to Las Vegas and for young players like Victor Wembanyama who are getting their NBA career started.

-Sam Gordon of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, you’ve got us all pumped up for the NBA.

-Thank you so much, Amber.

I appreciate you having me.

Thank you.

And thank you for watching.

This episode marks the start of our sixth season here at Nevada Week.

As always, for any of the resources discussed here, go to our website, vegaspbs.org/nevadaweek.

And I will see you next week on Nevada Week.