{"id":894286,"date":"2026-09-16T16:40:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T16:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/894286\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T16:40:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T16:40:09","slug":"adam-silver-nba-seattle-expansion-hinges-on-ownership-group-makeup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/894286\/","title":{"rendered":"Adam Silver: NBA Seattle expansion hinges on ownership group makeup"},"content":{"rendered":"

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said that most of the questions the league\u2019s BOG still have about a potential expansion franchise in Seattle<\/a> \u201cfocus on the makeup of the ownership group outside of the principal owner and to what level of success the franchise could achieve,\u201d according to Tim Booth of the SEATTLE TIMES. One Roof Sports & Entertainment<\/a>, led by Kraken majority owner Samantha Holloway, already has billionaire philanthropist Melinda French Gates and Amazon CEO Andy Jassy as part of its ownership portfolio with the Kraken. Silver: \u201cIt\u2019s not just the principal. I think they\u2019re interested in the entire group. And then beyond that, I think it\u2019s what is the level of passion? What are they projecting they can do in the market?\u201d Booth noted one area that \u201cdoesn\u2019t seem to be a question\u201d is the arena situation. Silver praised Climate Pledge Arena as a \u201ctop-tier venue that members of the league\u2019s operations staff have visited and vetted.\u201d Silver noted that if Seattle was already in the league, the building \u201cwould be ready for hosting games when the new season begins next month.\u201d While One Roof Sports & Entertainment remains the lead group, Silver again said that the league is \u201clooking at more than one bid for the city\u201d (SEATTLE TIMES, 9\/15<\/a>).<\/p>\n

READY TO GO: Silver said, \u201cIf we were opening in five weeks, we could be ready in Seattle.\u201d In Seattle, Rick Morgan wrote Silver\u2019s comments \u201ccarry historical significance.\u201d When the Sonics left Seattle in 2008 to become the Thunder, the \u201cmajor sticking point between the NBA and the city was the lack of a new arena to replace an aging KeyArena.\u201d A majority stake in Climate Pledge Arena \u201cstrengthens the Holloway-led bid,\u201d as the NBA will \u201clikely appreciate an owner controlling day-to-day operations of the team\u2019s home.\u201d It will also \u201censure the group still gets something out of a new Climate Pledge Arena-tenant NBA team if Holloway doesn\u2019t win the expansion bid.\u201d In August, a firm called BlackSun Private Equity announced that it was part of a bid<\/a> on the Sonics with an organization called Native World Sports. Private equity ownership is limited in the NBA, meaning \u201ca firm can\u2019t lead the bid or take a majority stake.\u201d BlackSun CEO Atonn Muhammad said that the firm will announce who the controlling owner would be \u201cvery soon.\u201d He said, \u201cIt\u2019s a really impressive entity. We\u2019re going to reserve that for another announcement.\u201d BlackSun has said that it is \u201cworking with Tulalip Tribes to put an arena in Marysville,\u201d roughly 35 miles north of Seattle (PUGET SOUND BUSINESS JOURNAL, 9\/15<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said that most of the questions the league\u2019s BOG still have about a potential…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":894287,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,726,590,85],"class_list":["post-894286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=894286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/894287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=894286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=894286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=894286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}