The China Mail - NBA 'should explore' league expansion: Silver

Silver, speaking in his annual news conference ahead of the NBA Finals, said he expected the possibility of creating new franchises should be examined given the number of "underserved" markets in North America.

"I'd say the current sense is we should be exploring it," Silver said on the question of expansion.

"I don't think it's automatic because it depends on your perspective on the future of the league.

"As I've said before, expansion in a way is selling equity in the league. If you believe in the league, you don't necessarily want to add partners.

"On the other hand, we recognize there are underserved markets in the United States and elsewhere, I think markets that deserve to have NBA teams."

The NBA chief said next month's owners meeting in Las Vegas would gauge interest in expansion.

"It will be on the agenda to take the temperature of the room," Silver said. "We have committees that are already talking about it. But my sense is at that meeting, they're going to give direction to me and my colleagues at the league office that we should continue to explore it."

Silver added that the NBA's efforts to create a league in Europe were part of the expansion drive.

"We think there's an opportunity to serve fans in Europe," Silver said. "There's really high-level basketball being played there. But we think there is an opportunity to better serve fans there. I view that as a form of expansion as well, and that's something we're also thinking hard about."

Silver meanwhile confirmed that the NBA was working on a revamped All-Star Game which would bring an "international flavor" to the mid-season event that has battled years of steadily declining ratings, plunging from some 13.1 million viewers in 2002 to 4.72 million in 2025.

Silver, however, appeared to rule out a straight face-off between US players and a team made up of international players.

"We are looking at something that brings an international flavor into All-Star competition," Silver said. "We're still experimenting internally with different formats, talking to the Players Association about that.

"I don't think a straight-up USA versus World makes sense ... There probably will be some different teams we form. Whether it's some regional basis for how we combine certain groups of players, because USA players, who I talked about earlier, international is 30% of the league, American players are still 70% of the league."

W.Tam--ThChM