Las Vegas Selected For NBA Team, Casino Sites Eyed For Arena

Article By Larry Henry Last Updated: Mar 26^th, 2026 · 2 min read

Las Vegas Selected For NBA Team, Casino Sites Eyed For Arena

The NBA Board of Governors on Wednesday voted to explore bids to add Las Vegas and Seattle to the league as expansion teams, according to ESPN.

If the teams begin play as expected for the 2028-29 season, this will be the first NBA team to make its permanent home in Las Vegas. During the 1980s, the Utah Jazz played some regular-season “home” games on the UNLV campus in Las Vegas.

Seattle previously had an NBA franchise, the Seattle SuperSonics, from 1967-2008 before the team moved to Oklahoma City to become the Thunder. Last season, the Thunder defeated the Indiana Pacers to win the NBA championship.

The board’s final vote on expanding the league from 30 to 32 teams is expected later this year. The vote on Wednesday allows the league to seek bids for the two expansion teams.

Las Vegas: Sports and Entertainment Capital of the World

An NBA team is another important step in Las Vegas' effort to transition from "Sin City" to "Sports and Entertainment Capital of the World."

This comes at a time when casino construction around the country, in addition to legal sports betting in most states, have created pressures for the gaming industry in Las Vegas. Currently, tourism is still high in the Las Vegas Valley but has been in decline.

However, in recent years the NFL (Raiders), NHL (Golden Knights) and WNBA (Aces) have placed teams in Las Vegas as the city undergoes a transition to being a major sports destination. An effort to bring an NBA team to Las Vegas has been underway for some time.

In addition, the former Oakland Athletics in 2028 plan to make Las Vegas their home at a stadium being built on the Las Vegas Strip where the Tropicana hotel-casino once stood. The team, now known only as the Athletics without a city designation, play home games at a minor league ballpark in Sacramento.

Also, the Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix is now held annually on a route that includes the Strip and its major casinos.

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Possible NBA Arena Sites

To date, no arena site has been settled upon for an NBA team to play home games in Las Vegas. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the following sites have been mentioned:

Land at the Resorts World Las Vegas site on the west side of the Strip. For decades, this location was the site of the now-demolished Stardust hotel-casino.
Land adjacent to the Rio hotel-casino just west of the Strip.
Land between the Sahara and Fontainebleau hotel-casinos on the east side of the Strip.
T-Mobile Arena, where the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights currently play home games, on the west side of the Strip near the New York-New York hotel-casino.