Mexico City has hosted 35 NBA games and offers a 22 million person market, but Commissioner Adam Silver says expansion there remains a long-term possibility.
A substantial audience, with expansion still distant
Mexico City’s case for an NBA team rests on an established audience and years of league activity. The Indiana Pacers and Denver Nuggets meet there Saturday, bringing the league’s total to 35 games in Mexico—the highest tally outside the United States and Canada. The milestone shows the country has become a regular stop on the NBA calendar, rather than a market touched only for occasional exhibition events. Yet a history of games is evidence of sustained interest, not proof that a permanent franchise can succeed.
The matchup is the NBA’s fifth consecutive regular-season game in Mexico and its 15th since 2014. The league has staged 16 regular-season games and 19 preseason games in the country since its first Mexico game in 1992. Those figures describe a long-running relationship, but the mix matters: preseason games and regular-season contests serve different purposes, and neither by itself answers the operational questions a local team would face. For the league, repeated visits offer a way to maintain visibility and test audience response without committing to a full season in the market.
Expansion talk has sharpened the attention around this year’s game. NBA owners were briefed last month about at least one Mexico City group that had approached PJT Partners, the investment bank overseeing the league’s expansion process. The proposal would include a new arena, according to ESPN. That detail points to the scale of the undertaking: an expansion bid requires more than a fan base, and a new venue would be central to making a team viable and giving it a permanent home.
Commissioner Adam Silver later tempered expectations during an appearance on the Pat McAfee Show. “Maybe down the road there’s Mexico City, which is the largest city in North America,” he said. “It’s a shorter flight from New York to Mexico than from New York to Los Angeles, so you can see why we’d be interested.” His comments give the idea credibility, but the qualifying phrase “down the road” is doing real work. Silver identified a reason to consider the city; he didn’t announce a timetable or a decision.
Las Vegas and Seattle remain the leading expansion candidates. Mexico City, with a metropolitan population of 22 million, would give the NBA a major foothold in the country and a potential gateway to Latin America. Population and geographic reach make a persuasive opening case, though they don’t settle questions of travel, arena operations, or whether interest in visiting teams would translate into dependable demand across a full season. This is more significant than it looks: the NBA is weighing a market that could extend its reach well beyond the U.S., while the practical hurdles remain substantial. Silver’s comments signal interest, but put any decision well in the future.
League infrastructure is already in place
The NBA says Mexico has more than 30 million fans. Basketball ranks second to soccer among the country’s most-played team sports, and GWI research identifies the NBA as the leading U.S. sports league among Mexican Gen Z, with 7.5 million fans. Those measures suggest the league has a large audience to build on, especially among younger fans. They don’t tell us how many people would regularly attend games, but they help explain why the NBA continues to invest in a market where its presence is already familiar.
The league opened a Mexico office in 2009, led by Raul Zarraga, and now has about 20 employees based there. Roughly two dozen global and regional marketing partners operate in the market, including Adidas, American Express, AT&T, AWS, Google, Microsoft, Nike and Wendy’s. NBA merchandise sales at its two physical stores have risen 78% year over year, while e-commerce sales are up 61%. The sales gains offer a concrete sign of commercial momentum, although merchandise activity and sponsorships don’t answer every question about the economics of operating a team. They do show that the NBA has built relationships and sales channels that could support a larger presence.
Its footprint also extends beyond the NBA brand. In 2021, the G League added Mexico City Capitanes as its first franchise outside the U.S. and Canada; the team plays at Arena CDMX. The NBA 2K League launched a Mexico esports team that same year. These ventures give the league ways to connect with audiences through live basketball and gaming, while the Capitanes provide an existing local team operation. Here's the thing: that experience can inform the NBA’s understanding of the market, but a G League franchise and an esports team aren’t substitutes for the demands of an NBA schedule.
What a Mexico City team would have to prove
That infrastructure contrasts with the limited Mexican presence on NBA rosters: of 125 international players on opening day, Memphis Grizzlies forward Karim López was the only Mexican player. The gap between a sizable local audience and a single Mexican player on opening day underlines that fan interest can grow without a deep pipeline of homegrown NBA talent. A franchise’s appeal would therefore need to rest on more than national representation, drawing on the league’s broader fan base, its existing commercial ties, and the spectacle of live games.
If you're working in this space, the distinction is familiar: a market can be attractive to a global league long before it’s ready for a permanent team. Mexico City already has a record of hosting NBA games, a league office, corporate partners, retail sales and a G League franchise. That’s a meaningful foundation. The open question is whether those pieces can support the travel, venue demands and steady local engagement that come with a full-time NBA club (and this is the part most people overlook).
The league’s next Global Games stop in Europe, with January matchups in Paris and Manchester. The Paris game will bring San Antonio Spurs star Victor Wembanyama back to his home country to face the New Orleans Pelicans at Accor Arena. Those games show how the NBA uses international events to keep its presence visible across markets, even as the shape of that presence varies by city. Mexico City’s expansion prospects remain open, while its existing role as an international NBA market continues to grow. For now, the evidence points to a market the league knows well and wants to keep developing. A franchise remains a possibility, not a plan.
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