NBA's Las Vegas Expansion Team Could Cost $12-13 Billion, Three Groups Left Standing

The NBA is about to hand someone a bill north of $12 billion for the right to own a basketball team that doesn't exist yet.

ESPN's Shams Charania reported Tuesday that the league expects to pick a winning bidder for its Las Vegas expansion franchise in the "very near future." The price: at least $12-13 billion for the franchise and a new arena combined, according to Charania's sources.

Three finalist groups remain. Nancy Walton Laurie and her husband Bill Laurie. Steve Apostolopoulos and Marc Lasry. And Bill Foley with Jerry Colangelo. All three were reported nearly identically by NBC Sports, TheScore, Clutch Points, Fade Away World, ahnfiredigital and BasketNews, all of them tracing back to Charania's Tuesday report.

Who's Actually Bidding

Nancy Walton Laurie is the daughter of Walmart co-founder James "Bud" Walton. She and her husband Bill, a former St. Louis Blues owner and real estate developer, live in the Las Vegas area and are worth roughly $17 billion, according to NBC Sports.

Steve Apostolopoulos is a Canadian real estate billionaire who previously made unsuccessful runs at buying the NFL's Washington Commanders and the NHL's Ottawa Senators, per BasketNews and TheScore. His partner, Marc Lasry, co-owned the Milwaukee Bucks from 2014 to 2023, including the team's 2021 championship run, before selling his stake.

Bill Foley already owns the NHL's Vegas Golden Knights. His partner Jerry Colangelo built the Phoenix Suns and was named NBA Executive of the Year four times. NBC Sports reported their group also includes former players Vinny Del Negro and Jay Williams, former Turner Sports president David Levy, and Scott Colangelo of Prime Capital Financial. According to ahnfiredigital, Foley and Colangelo originally ran separate bids before merging efforts.

Colangelo, in a Sept. 16 interview cited by ahnfiredigital, acknowledged the process is unpredictable. "You just don't know what the owners are going to do in terms of a vote," he said. That's a fair statement of the uncertainty every bidder faces heading into a Board of Governors vote where 30 existing owners decide who joins the club.

Vegas Before Seattle, and Why

The league is running Las Vegas ahead of a parallel expansion process for Seattle, where Samantha Holloway, who owns the NHL's Seattle Kraken, is considered the frontrunner with a ready-made home in Climate Pledge Arena. NBC Sports noted a second Seattle bidder, BlackSun Private Equity partnered with the Tulalip Tribes, has floated a new arena roughly 35 miles outside the city.

Commissioner Adam Silver explained the sequencing after a Sept. 15 Board of Governors meeting, according to ahnfiredigital. Seattle's building is basically ready to go. Las Vegas isn't. "If we were opening in five weeks, we could be ready in Seattle," Silver said, an illustration of arena readiness rather than any announcement about an actual timeline. Silver laid out two paths for Vegas: a major overhaul of T-Mobile Arena, home to the WNBA's Aces and NHL's Golden Knights, or building an entirely new venue. He said picking a site at that point would have been premature.

Tuesday's price tag from Charania now folds a new arena into the cost, which lines up with Silver's comments that T-Mobile Arena, in its current form, "needs some significant improvements" before it could host an NBA team. The NBA has already started shifting marquee events away from that building. The 2026 NBA Cup final was moved from Las Vegas to Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.

The Money in Context

The $12-13 billion figure would make this the most expensive franchise entry point in NBA history by a wide margin. The Los Angeles Lakers sold this past summer for an NBA-record $12.5 billion, according to Forbes, a valuation for an existing 17-time champion with decades of built-in revenue. An expansion team starts from zero.

For scale, Forbes lists the NFL's Dallas Cowboys as the world's most valuable sports franchise at roughly $17 billion. The Vegas group isn't far off buying an entire arena and team for what amounts to three-quarters of the NFL's crown jewel.

None of the reporting reviewed here indicates any taxpayer money or public subsidy tied to the arena plans. Every group involved is self-funded by billionaires or hedge-fund money. Given how often NBA and NFL arena deals elsewhere have leaned on public financing, this stands out. Whether that stays true once a specific site and construction plan get locked in is still unknown.

What Happens Next

The NBA's Board of Governors will hold a formal approval process for two expansion franchises, Las Vegas and Seattle, before the end of the year, Charania reported. The league is targeting the 2028-29 season at the earliest for both teams to begin play, according to Fade Away World and BasketNews.

Whoever loses the Las Vegas bidding war isn't necessarily done. Charania's reporting, echoed across NBC Sports and TheScore, indicates the runner-up groups could pivot into the Seattle bidding process. The unresolved question is where the new Las Vegas arena actually gets built, and whether "significant improvements" to T-Mobile Arena or a brand-new venue anchored to a resort complex wins out. Silver has said a site decision would be premature until ownership is settled. That settlement, per Charania, is now close.