Las Vegas NBA team now costs $10 billion or more: Lasry’s group won’t raise its bid, and what the price means for owners and Seattle

The price of an NBA team in Las Vegas just went up, and one of the three groups chasing it has decided it will not follow. The group led by former Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry and Canadian billionaire Steve Apostolopoulos, which had offered roughly $9 billion to $9.5 billion, has effectively dropped out of the expansion race after the league told every bidder that the franchise would cost $10 billion or more, Tom Friend of Sports Business Journal reported Friday.

That would leave two groups standing: Walmart heiress Nancy Walton Laurie and her husband Bill Laurie, who have partnered with Raiders minority owner Egon Durban, and a group pairing Golden Knights owner Bill Foley with former Suns owner Jerry Colangelo. But the story moved again a few hours later. Chris Haynes reported Friday night that the Lasry-Apostolopoulos group remains in play, and that Kenny Smith, the former Rockets guard and longtime studio analyst, is part of it and has raised 20% of the bid.

Both things can be true at once. The group has not formally withdrawn. It has simply said it will not raise its number. If the other two bidders also refuse to reach $10 billion, its offer would still be on the table. If either one gets there, Lasry and Apostolopoulos are out.

How the price got to $10 billion

When the NBA began reviewing finalist bids this fall, the all-in cost for a Las Vegas team was put at $12 billion to $13 billion, made up of an expansion fee near $10 billion and another $2 billion to $3 billion to build a new arena. What changed this week is that the league turned the fee into a floor. Sources close to one of the remaining groups believe the NBA actually wants a bid closer to $11 billion, plus a commitment of about $2 billion for a building.

This is how a competitive sale is supposed to work. The NBA hired the investment bank PJT Partners to run the process, and a bank running an auction with three serious buyers will always try to use each one to push the others higher. Lasry’s group was the first to say no. For the league, that is a useful signal, too. It suggests the $10 billion figure is close to where the market really is, not a number pulled from the air.

The scale is hard to overstate. In 2004, the expansion Charlotte Bobcats cost $300 million. When Lasry and Wes Edens bought the Bucks in 2014, they paid $550 million. Lasry later sold his stake to Jimmy and Dee Haslam at a valuation of $3.5 billion in 2023. A $10 billion fee for a team that has no players, no arena and no games would make Las Vegas one of the most expensive purchases in sports history before a single ticket is sold.

Why the existing owners care so much

The fee does not go to the league office. It is split among the 30 current owners. At $10 billion, each team would collect about $333 million from Las Vegas alone. If Seattle comes in at its reported floor of $7 billion, the two cities together would bring in $17 billion, or roughly $567 million per team. Expansion fees are also not part of the basketball revenue shared with players under the collective bargaining agreement, which is why owners have such a strong interest in seeing the number go up.

Bucks president Josh Glessing made the owners’ side of the case in a videocast interview released Thursday, before the latest report. Asked whether $10 billion for Las Vegas and $7 billion for Seattle sounded right, he said he expected both fees could come in higher. The wider conversation covered the forces that have lifted every NBA valuation: record media-rights money, a deep pool of private equity and wealthy investors looking for sports assets, and a league whose talent pool and audience keep growing around the world.

"We're still a few seasons away from actual expansion taking place..

We've been public about the fact that we're looking at Las Vegas and Seattle..

Maybe down the road there's Mexico City which is the largest city in North America" ~ Adam Silver#PMSLive pic.twitter.com/ECcY0HgNvY

— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) October 20, 2026

The two groups left, and why one is the favorite

Industry insiders see the Walton-Laurie group as the front-runner, mostly because of the money behind it. The Lauries’ fortune has been estimated at about $18.5 billion, and the group added Silver Lake co-CEO Egon Durban earlier this month. Durban owns about 22% of the Raiders and runs one of the largest technology investment firms in the world, which gives the bid both financing expertise and an existing seat inside Las Vegas sports. The group is said to be planning a new arena next to Allegiant Stadium, with a mixed-use district around it.

Foley brings something different: a proven track record in the market. He paid a $500 million fee to launch the Golden Knights in 2017, and the team reached the Stanley Cup Final in its first season and won the Cup in 2023. If he wins, he may lean on his partner Marquee Development to renovate T-Mobile Arena, although both Foley and the league are said to prefer a new building. That arena question matters because there are a dozen or so arena pitches around the city, from the Area15 site west of the Strip to land on the North Strip.

Whichever group wins still needs a vote from at least 23 of the 30 current owners. The league is expected to award the Las Vegas franchise within about a month, possibly sooner, and the team would start play in either 2028-29 or 2029-30, depending on how fast a new arena can be built.

The problem for Seattle

The Lasry decision also puts pressure on the league’s other market. The NBA had hoped that the groups that lose in Las Vegas would turn to Seattle as a fallback, which would add competition there and drive up the price. Instead, all three Las Vegas groups are said to be lukewarm about Seattle, seeing it as a less attractive market financially.

That matters because Seattle’s bidding has been substantially lower than the Las Vegas offers for weeks. One Roof Sports and Entertainment has been the favored bidder there from the start, and a second group, BlackSun Private Equity, has partnered with the Tulalip Tribes on a plan to play near Marysville. The league is said to want at least $7 billion for a Seattle team. Unlike Las Vegas, Seattle already has a ready-made home in Climate Pledge Arena, but a ready building does not help if there is only one serious buyer at the table.

Adam Silver has been careful not to promise dates. On the first day of the season, he said new teams are still “a few seasons away” and raised Mexico City as a possible future market. Talk of a third city also works as leverage on Seattle’s bidders.

What to watch next

The next move belongs to the two remaining Las Vegas groups. If either one reaches $10 billion or more, the league can name a winner within weeks, and the 30 owners will start counting their shares of the fee. If both hold back, Lasry and Apostolopoulos, with Kenny Smith’s investors behind them, are suddenly back in the conversation. After that comes the harder question of whether anyone is willing to pay $7 billion for the return of the SuperSonics.