NBA seriously considering adding an expansion team in Mexico City

The NBA is now seriously considering adding a new expansion team based in Mexico City to the league’s lineup according to Commissioner Adam Silver. 

“Mexico City [is] doing all the things necessary to demonstrate to the league that ultimately, we may be in a position to house an NBA team here,” Silver said before a 2022 Miami Heat and San Antonio Spurs game in the city. 

“When you look at the success we've had in Canada to the north,” Silver added, “beginning in the early '90s, it makes sense to me that we would expand to the south, as well.” 

League expansion has been on the back-burner for the NBA ever since the Charlotte Bobcats—now Hornets— were added back in 2004. 

Since the addition of the Hornets, the league has been more focussed on its existing markets. But it looks like that may be about to change. 

The league's revenue is at an all-time high and new talent from across the world has given American basketball a global reach unlike anything it has ever had before, it would only make sense to add a new franchise now. 

Seattle and Las Vegas are two perennial suggestions for team expansion, but Mexico City has become an increasingly popular choice.

Mexico is the fifth-largest market for the NBA League Pass on-demand streaming service and it is the fourth-largest market for the league's online merchandise. 

Plus, Mexico has a long history of embracing basketball, especially in its northern mountainous regions. 

‘In recent decades,” noted Forbes sports writer Nathaniel Parish Flannery, “as internet and cable TV penetration have increased in bigger cities, the NBA has been successful in promoting its brand of basketball in Mexico.”

Over the last decade, the NBA has hosted nearly a dozen games in Mexico City, all of which have gone off without incident.

"Mexico City’s arena is modern,” Flannery commented, “big and LOUD. It holds more than 1,500 more fans than San Antonio’s home arena.”

“The crowds in Mexico City have earned a reputation for the volume at which they voice their support for visiting teams,” Flannery added. 

Mexico City is also already home to the Mexico City Capitanes, an NBA G-League team that has made basketball a mainstay of the city’s culture. 

While it remains to be seen if Mexico City will be awarded its own NBA franchise, the league is now seriously considering doing so. 

“The NBA’s openness to playing in Mexico City shows how much the international perception of Mexico City has evolved over the last decade,” wrote Flannery.

Mexico City is no longer the dangerous and inhospitable city known to many from the early 2000s. It is a thriving metropolis and would do well with a new franchise that could help the league improve its global reach. 

"Expansion is currently not on the docket, but at some point, if we were to turn to expansion, there's no doubt that Mexico City would have to be one (of) the cities that would be in consideration,” said the NBA’s deputy commissioner Mark Tatum.