Discussions at the Board of Governors meetings on expansion centered around Las Vegas due to greater uncertainty regarding a potential venue there compared to Seattle, Brian Mahoney of the Associated Press reports.

An expansion team could move right into Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena, while a Las Vegas franchise could either play in the T-Mobile Arena with some modifications or a brand new arena.

“Therefore, it’s a much longer timeline before we can throw the ball up for NBA basketball,” commissioner Adam Silver said of Las Vegas’ bids for a franchise. “On the other hand, in Seattle, we have had operational groups out to Climate Pledge. You clearly have a state-of-the-art arena there. May require some modifications for NBA basketball. If we were opening in five weeks, we could be ready in Seattle.”

The next round of bids will be submitted in the near future but that won’t be the final round.

“I’ve been saying it’s our goal to have decisions by the end of the year, and that continues to be our goal,” Silver said, per Grant Afseth of the Dallas Sports Journal.

The board voted March 25 to formally explore expansion to Las Vegas and Seattle. The league has been vetting potential ownership groups in both markets over the course of the past few months. Teams in both cities are expected to debut in the 2028/29 season, with an expansion draft in the summer of 2028.

There are two known bidders for a Seattle franchise. Mavericks governor Patrick Dumont is leading the discussions regarding a Las Vegas franchise, Afseth relays.

“Several active groups, I’ll leave it at that, and I’ll say that there was a discussion led by Patrick Dumont, of course, who’s a Las Vegas resident and enormous operating experience there in Las Vegas, just sort of as an independent objective party, led a discussion around the various sites, potential sites in Las Vegas,” Silver said. “I think that there is real excitement around either a renovated T-Mobile Arena. I think everyone acknowledges if a team were to stay there, it still needs some significant improvements. But at the same time, there are groups who have presented plans to build what I would call a modern entertainment palace in Las Vegas.”

According to a recent ESPN report, some teams have been projecting an expansion fee payout of $500-600MM for each current franchise, which would add up to $15-18 billion in total expansion fees for two new teams.