The Washington Wizards and Miami Heat are set to play a game in Mexico City during the 2024-25 season, on November 2nd. While this is the 33rd NBA game that will be played in Mexico City, this matchup in particular could help the NBA decide if the market is ready for its own team. Here’s why:
Wizards-Heat Mexico Game Shows League’s Interest in Expansion
Background
The Wizards and Heat will be playing in Mexico on Dia de los Muertos, a Mexican holiday to celebrate the dead. This means a cool court design for the game, in-game activities, and more. There’ll be plenty of people ready to see two NBA teams take each other on and celebrate the holiday–a win-win for everyone.
“We are delighted at the opportunity to represent the NBA and Washington, D.C. at the Global Games and are proud that our team reflects the growing globalization of the NBA. Previous Washington Bullets and Wizard teams have had the opportunity of playing in Mexico City. We are honored to follow in their footsteps and look forward to introducing this new Wizards team to NBA fans in Mexico City.” –Michael Winger
The arena that the two teams will be playing in, CDMX Arena, seats 22,300 people, higher than the NBA’s average of a little under 19,000. Mexico City also has a population of just under nine million people, easily enough support and interest for a future NBA franchise.
Expansion
The NBA has hinted at expansion for quite some time now. During last year’s NBA Finals, commissioner Adam Silver said that expansion was a possibility for the league. Places mentioned include Seattle, formerly the home of the Supersonics; Las Vegas, the home of the NBA Summer League and a very large market; Vancouver, which formerly hosted the Grizzlies before they moved to Memphis; and lastly, Mexico City, to further expand the NBA’s presence in North America.
As you may have seen after the Celtics won the Finals, the NBA loves calling their champion the “world champions.” This has been criticized by some (most notably Olympian Noah Lyles) since the NBA doesn’t play in the whole world. However, adding another country with an NBA team would make the world championship claim less outlandish, as the league would span almost all of North America.
Why Wizards-Heat
The Wizards and Heat are perfect teams to further test out Mexico City as a market. If the league has goals of expanding, then they want to make sure they can fill the stands. Expansion teams never start with a good record…and I mean never. The Vancouver (now Memphis) Grizzlies went 15-67 in their inaugural season, the Toronto Raptors went 21-61, and the Charlotte Hornets went 20-62. Even with an expansion draft, an expansion team isn’t going to be good initially.
That’s why it’s important to see what kind of attention bad to mediocre teams get in Mexico City. It’s no secret that the Wizards are going to struggle again next year, even with the #2 overall pick. The Heat are a play-in team at the moment, but there’s a high chance that they lose Jimmy Butler this offseason. If they do, they’ll still be a decent team with Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo…but the Eastern Conference is very competitive. Winning will be difficult, and they’ll fall towards the back of the play-in. Who knows if the Heat decide to blow up their team as a whole this offseason. Whatever the case, this won’t be a marquee matchup like every other NBA game on ESPN. If this game still packs the stands despite lackluster NBA talent, it will help make Mexico City’s case for an NBA team.
