What happens in Vegas pays in Vegas.
Jerry Colangelo firmly believed since the 1980s that it certainly pays for the NBA to be in Las Vegas.
On Wednesday, July 8, a press release said that the 86-year-old former Phoenix Suns owner is leading a private equity group to bring Las Vegas an expansion NBA franchise.
The league’s Board of Governors voted on March 25 to explore expansion teams in Las Vegas and Seattle to begin play in the 2028-29 season.
Colangelo has a Midas touch track record, launching successful expansion teams in the NBA, WNBA and MLB. He began his executive career as part of his hometown Chicago Bulls in 1966, moved to the desert to launch the Phoenix Suns in 1968, co-founded the Arizona Diamondbacks in 1995 and established the Phoenix Mercury when the WNBA began in 1997.
According to Front Office Sports, there are currently nine NBA teams owned private equity (PE) groups. JP Morgan reported in 2025 that nearly one in five teams across the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL now have some PE involvement. Colangelo spoke to The Arizona Republic about the rise of PE groups changing the trajectory of NBA team ownership, and why he’s bewildered the league took so long to pursue Las Vegas.
On private equity group changing the landscape of sports team ownership.
“As you look at team ownership in professional sports today, it’s become a very sophisticated endeavor. Thinking back over my experiences, one, the required equity was substantially less. It’s grown in the decades incredibly. I think in my journey, the Bulls came in at $1.2 million for an expansion team in ‘66. Phoenix was $2 million in ’68. I bought the Suns for $44.5 million in ’87 and sold for over $400 million in 2004, and then things exploded. Our $400 million was the highest price ever paid for a franchise in the history of the NBA, and it took seven years for that to be exceeded, and that was Golden State (Warriors). They came in at $460 million, maybe, somewhere in there. And then I think when Steve Ballmer bought the Clippers (in 2014), things changed dramatically. That was the 2 billion-dollar price tag, and then things changed dramatically when you saw private equity coming in through investment groups. That was a new twist. So, I guess the bottom line is evolve. Things have evolved in so many different ways in terms of valuations, price tags, the extent of groups and individuals interested in putting private equity into a professional sports team. So it’s a whole different game today.”
Why Colangelo’s surprised Las Vegas is without NBA team before NFL, MLB, NHL and WNBA.
“The NBA has indicated that there’s a serious look-see at two additional teams, and the two cities that have been mentioned are Seattle and Las Vegas. Ironically, I thought at one time the NBA would be the first professional team in Las Vegas, and I’m going back years. Obviously, what’s happened is that hockey, now Major League Baseball will be there with the (Athletics) team, the NFL is there (Raiders), and of the four, (the NBA) is the last of the big four, where I thought at one time it would be the first. In fact, I was a proponent of Las Vegas years ago because I thought it had great basketball history, centered around (late college coach) Jerry Tarkanian and UNLV with their great teams, great support, and then Las Vegas became a basketball hotbed for junior basketball, summer basketball, the NBA Summer League, USA Basketball. I selected Las Vegas as our home for USA Basketball, and so that was like a 20-year run (Colangelo was the Team USA men’s basketball director from 2005-21). The interest in basketball has continued in a big way in that market for sure.”
On why a Las Vegas NBA team will flourish.
“The other thing I’d say about Las Vegas, which makes it so unique is I’m very bullish on the franchise in the sense that Las Vegas is as much of an international city in the States when you think about it. The volume of visitors that go through Vegas — and in Vegas, there are similarities to Phoenix as a market — but at the end of the day, I think an NBA franchise in Las Vegas has the potential to be extremely successful for all the reasons that we’re now talking about.”
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Colangelo talks private equity in NBA, Las Vegas expansion | Exclusive
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