Fenway Sports Group want to own an NBA team, that much is clear.
The Liverpool owners have been pretty honest about their intentions around such a move for some time now with Reds chairman Tom Werner, Boston Red Sox president and FSG partner Sam Kennedy, and RedBird Capital Partners founder and FSG partner Gerry Cardinale all having gone on record to signpost a swoop for an NBA franchise.
Who that team will be and when it might happen are two things that haven't been addressed, but the next move will provide some clarity over the future direction of FSG, for whom Liverpool remain core to their ambitions for the long term. Adding value to the business through acquiring new teams and entering into new markets is part of the plan, and the strength of FSG as a business will have a knock-on effect to Liverpool further down the line. If FSG are wealthier as a whole, it means more money to spend on project to raise revenues at their teams.
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And FSG's commitment to Liverpool is long term - there is no desire to lose the Reds from their empire. Quite the opposite, actually. They want more teams to be coming into the fold.
Having been linked with interest in the Minnesota Timberwolves at one stage, the smart money would be on FSG acquiring an expansion franchise, and the even smarter money would be on LeBron James, an FSG partner after he converted his two per cent stake in Liverpool last year into one per cent of FSG's whole $10bn empire, being front and centre of that when the time comes.
There is talk of the NBA expanding from 30 teams to 32, with Seattle and Las Vegas both frontrunners for new teams. The NBA have been non-committal over the plans for expansion but haven't ruled it out, and the NBA team owners of the 30 presently competing would want to see the media rights deal boosted, and some concessions given, before they would likely be keen to divide the pie among another two teams.
Then there is James himself. Still an active NBA player with the Los Angeles Lakers, he is one of the most recognisable athletes on the planet who transcends the sport he has dominated for the best part of two decades. He isn't planning on retiring from the hardwood just yet and wants to play a season with his son, Bronny, before he does. Realistically the earliest James Jnr will be able to get from high school to the NBA and get around the 'one and done' rule, which requires young players arriving into the league to be a year removed from high school if they haven't gone down the collegiate route, will be next year.
The valuations for the potential expansion franchises won't put off FSG. While upwards of $2bn has been mooted, the value will lie in the market size, the media deal and the ability to leverage the kind of global appeal that James has. He is, after all, an athlete who has a $1bn lifetime deal in place with Nike and has become a successful entrepreneur along with friend and business partner Maverick Carter. FSG, RedBird and Nike have all invested in James and Carter's SpringHill Entertainment company. Expect SpringHill to be an important partner for FSG as they move through the gears in the coming decade.
FSG have been savvy in positioning themselves for the next phase of what they do. They opened themselves up to new investment by bringing on board Cardinale in a $750m deal that saw RedBird acquire 11 per cent of the overall FSG business. Cardinale is someone at the vanguard of sporting investment at present, being at the apex of where sport, media, entertainment and analytics meet.
James and Carter bring different skills to the table, with SpringHill looking to be the market leaders in digital storytelling and finding the new opportunities that come with that in a rapidly evolving sporting landscape. All of this, with Liverpool a core part of what FSG do and a big piece of the puzzle as far as the future is concerned, puts the Reds in a strong position.
The NBA move will be an interesting one. Las Vegas and Seattle are two very different cities with very different demographics. An expansion franchise in the famously rainy Seattle would fill the void left when the Sonics were relocated and renamed the Oklahoma City Thunder back in 2008. It remains a hub of industry and entrepreneurialism, however, with globally recognised firms such as Amazon and Starbucks both having their headquarters there. For a city that plays host to the world's biggest company there is the expectancy that they should have the full complement of teams in major American sports to add to the Seattle Seahawks (NFL), Seattle Sounders (MLS), Seattle Mariners (MLB) and the recently arrived Seattle Kraken (NHL). An NBA franchise is all that's missing.
But for the opportunities that obviously lie in Seattle, it is Las Vegas, putting the pieces of the puzzle together, that would appear to make the most sense for FSG.
Vegas is booming right now. It has started to shake off the reputation of being some kind of curious gambling outpost in the Nevada desert where entertainers went to get rich and casino goers went to have their pockets emptied. It is now surging in popularity, it is seeing a property boom like nowhere else in the US, and having had a population of 1.2m in 2000, it is set to see that rise to 3.3m by 2035.
It has always been a mecca for entertainment, but that was more Frank Sinatra and Siegfried and Roy than anything remotely associated with sport. But there are indications that Las Vegas is ready to seriously challenge the dominance of New York and Los Angeles when it comes to the sporting offering, and that is something that FSG will be acutely aware of and something that they will be keen to get involved in should the opportunity arise.
In 2020 the Oakland Raiders NFL franchise relocated some 550 miles from California to Nevada and became the Las Vegas Raiders, bringing the first-ever NFL franchise to Vegas. Finding a market to support an NFL team is core to America's biggest sporting league, and in Vegas the growth couldn't be ignored. The arrival of the Raiders came three years on from Vegas' first major sports team, the Las Vegas Golden Knights NHL team, while there is also another major sporting team that has arrived in the Nevada sunshine in the shape of the women's basketball team the Las Vegas Aces, who compete in the WNBA. More will arrive.
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This past week saw another major building block put in place after investment group Oak View secured a 25-acre development site in Vegas. The aim is to create a $3bn sports and entertainment district that will include a state-of-the-art, 20,000-seater arena at a cost of $1bn. That arena will be 'NBA ready' according to Oak View CEO Tim Leiweke.
"South of the Las Vegas strip represents one of the few areas of potential future growth of the gaming and entertainment corridor,” said Leiweke via press release. "This unprecedented project is an industry game-changer, and we will usher in the evolution of Las Vegas as the new entertainment and sports capital of the world. As the largest arena developer in the world, we look forward to driving good paying job creation to Clark County as well as creating the most innovative and environmentally sustainable live entertainment point of destination in the world."
When it comes to seeking interest from ownership groups able to drive forward the opportunity that lies in such markets, the NBA will have their eyes on FSG. The track record they have across major sport, their links with James and Nike, and having investment vehicles such as RedBird in their corner, make them enormously attractive, and the opportunity that lies within a Vegas market for FSG to really accelerate some of the strategies to grow their empire using new technologies and opportunities attached to that, as well as leveraging their relationship with James, would almost certainly be of interest to FSG.
Other additions to the empire may happen before an NBA move, with football teams eyed as well as other businesses, but the goal for FSG is to become the world's leading sports ownership group, one where delivering value in sporting and business performance go hand in hand. Whether that happens in two years or five years remains to be seen, but Liverpool won't be up for grabs, they will instead be forming a key part of a major plan with a long-term view. That kind of stability, especially given the recent upheaval at Chelsea, could hand the Reds an advantage when it comes to remaining at the top.
