No reason to expect it to happen soon. Silver's comment was essentially just putting up a flag to find out over the next couple of years if there are groups that are both ready to put up an expansion fee of more than a billion dollars and have an arena, and have a really good financial arrangement with the arena.
What's the best financial arrangement after you've already coughed up a billion-dollar expansion fee? Owning the arena yourself is best (Knicks, Warriors, Nuggets, Wizards, also Clippers if they get their new arena built), owning the NBA and NHL teams in the same arena is second best (Knicks, Nuggets, and Wizards again), a sweetheart rent deal that is almost rent-free is third-best, anything else might not work for the team owner.
Who fits any of those categories? There aren't many fits if you also include the size of the home market.
The Anaheim Ducks owner would fit, and he's worth $6 billion, but there isn't going to be a third NBA team in SoCal, even though it's the 2nd largest media market in the US.
The Seattle Kraken ownership also operates the arena, so if they buy an NBA team, they fit. Seattle is the 13th largest media market in the US. (Market size rankings:
https://mediatracks.com/resources/nielse...ings-2020/ )
Some other top 30 media markets:
If the Pittsburgh Penguins ownership has enough money, maybe. Their arena is only 10 years old, though they don't own it. The lead owner is worth "only" $2 billion, so can he really ante up for a second team?
The St. Louis Blues play in an arena that's almost 30 years old, and they don't own it, and the ownership group is a large group put together 8 years ago to buy the Blues for $130 million. That's not a group that will put up over a billion to buy an NBA team. And it's more difficult to make money selling tickets in an older arena, with fewer luxury boxes and little or no other "premium seating".
The Nashville Predators ownership group looks a lot like the St. Louis group -- a large group that paid $190 million for the NHL team. Their arena, also not owned by the team, is also more than 25 years old. They probably also don't have enough capital to buy an NBA expansion franchise.
Anyplace else seems even less likely, unless there is someone with enough money to build or buy their own arena and also buy an expansion team. The farther down you go in market size, the less local media money the team gets.
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NBA Expansion Considered by Adam Silver
