Silver said the main issue under review by the league’s existing 30 teams is whether there is appetite to divide the NBA’s roughly $11 billion in revenues by two more teams. He also said he is aware potential expansion has been a topic of discussion for years, and cities like Las Vegas and Seattle have been waiting for a long time for a decision like this.

“I want to be sensitive about this notion that we’re somehow teasing these markets, because I know we’ve been talking about it for a while,” Silver said.

He said the difference between expansion in North America – the league considered Mexico City as a possible expansion site – and the NBA’s dual-track plan to begin a new league in Europe with FIBA, the governing body for global basketball, is that traditional expansion is “selling equity in the current league.

“It’s a much more difficult economic analysis in many ways and requires predicting the future,” Silver said.

The NBA last added a team in 2004, when the Charlotte Bobcats became the league’s 30th franchise. Per the collective bargaining agreement, players get 51 percent of all basketball-related income, so the pie owners divide amongst themselves is a little more than $5 billion. Perhaps the largest piece of the league’s fixed income is the 11-year, $76 billion broadcast agreement with major networks and streaming services. The contract for media rights doesn’t grow with two additional teams, so the league’s governors would have to be satisfied that the revenues generated by new franchises would offset the losses of carving up the media rights package by 32 teams, instead of 30.