NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has admitted the difficulties of having an NBA expansion team in Mexico City, after the Heat and the Wizards played a game there this week.
During his press conference, Silver said, “Personally, I would love to have a team”.
But afterwards, in a seperate interview with The Athletic, he admitted it “would be more difficult to expand to Mexico City than it would be to expand to U.S. cities that have very publicly sought NBA teams.”
Silver further explained, “Being direct, it’s highly unlikely Mexico City would jump above U.S. cities that are currently under consideration,” Silver said. “But at the same time, once we move into expansion mode and start looking at all the considerations that go with expansion, I think that would then allow us to have more of a template to understand whether a city like Mexico City would be suitable.”
Silver revealed that the league’s front office has started to study expansion internally and that adding a team in the city is “many years off” if it were to happen at all.
He also clarified that it would be a preference to add two teams instead of one if the NBA does decides to expand, “because then we might have to do some adjustments in the conferences, (and) I think it makes sense to have two conferences of 16 teams if we were to do it.”
Also Saturday, the NBA announced a contract extension with its entertainment partner in Mexico City to keep playing games there.
“In many ways, Mexico City would be more additive,” Silver said. “Flipping a switch in a country of 130 million people and 22 million people here in Mexico City. And so not just from a business standpoint, but in terms of generating more interest and enthusiasm around the game. So we’re going to continue to study it.”
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