NBA's Mark Tatum about league expansion: 'We haven't decided yet' / News - Basketnews.com

Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum said that the agreement on a media deal has to come first before a concrete decision about the NBA expansion is made.

Credit: AP Photo/Nuccio DiNuzzo - Scanpix Credit AP Photo/Nuccio DiNuzzo - Scanpix

The talk about a possible expansion in the NBA has been going on for multiple years. However, it has been at the forefront of multiple discussions recently.

Rumors have started spreading about a two-team expansion, possibly in Seattle and Las Vegas. Despite the rumors, the NBA hasn't made the decision yet. At least that's what the Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum says.

"At the moment, we have no plans to expand. I'll tell you what the commissioner, Adam Silver, said: before we can think about the expansion, the collective bargaining agreement with the players must be completed, and we also want to complete the agreement with the television media, which we are currently negotiating," he told SDNA.

"We are in the process of negotiations, which was completed in the [last] spring, and we have the rest of the season and one more year for the agreement with the domestic media," Tatum explained.

The NBA is in the process of signing a new media deal. The current one, which was signed in 2016 and is worth $24 billion with Disney and AT&T, expires after the 2024-25 season.

"We've decided that we won't focus on expansion until those two things get done. Then we'll see if we expand," Tatum said. "We haven't decided if we're going to do it yet, it's not something that's on the horizon. At some point, the natural progression of leagues is to grow, and I think we're going to revisit that to see if it makes sense."

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