Las Vegas NBA expansion bid reportedly being eyed by Walmart heiress

Mick Akers, Las Vegas Review-Journal on Jul 21, 2026

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LAS VEGAS — Walmart heiress Nancy Walton Laurie and her husband Bill Laurie are contemplating bidding on a Las Vegas NBA expansion franchise, a person with knowledge of the situation confirmed to the Review-Journal.

The couple’s interest in a bid was reported by Sportico. They live in Henderson and have an estimated net worth of $17.8 billion, according to Forbes.

They once owned the NHL’s St. Louis Blues but sold the team in 2006 for $150 million.

When Walmart co-founder Bud Walton died in 1995, his daughters, Walton Laurie and Ann Walton Kroenke, split their father’s stock in the retail giant. Walton Kroenke is married to Stan Kroenke, who leads the ownership group with a portfolio that includes the Los Angeles Rams, Denver Nuggets, Colorado Avalanche and Colorado Rapids, among others.

Monday was the last day for ownership groups to detail their sources of financing and management plans to the NBA and PFT Partners, the investment bank the league hired in March to lead its expansion exploration of Las Vegas and Seattle, according to Sportico.

Nancy Walton Laurie and Bill Laurie are the latest big-name entrants to the Las Vegas NBA expansion process.

Other groups who are interested in netting an expansion team include the Las Vegas Jacks, headed by basketball Hall of Famer Jerry Colangelo, the Vegas Wants the NBA group, led by Golden Knights owner Bill Foley, one including former Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger and billionaire venture capitalist Joshua Kushner, and the MAGI, which includes basketball great turned business mogul Earvin “Magic” Johnson.

Last week, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said there were several groups eyeing expansion in both Las Vegas and Seattle, with the majority of those not making their efforts public.

At the time of the news conference, there were four known groups interested in bidding for a Las Vegas NBA team, something that Silver said was a positive for the city.

“It gives me a lot of confidence to see one, firsthand, the amount of interest in the game in Las Vegas,” Silver said. “Multiple very serious groups are in the process of presenting to our bankers, and those plans not only include who the potential owners would be, but their vision for what Las Vegas basketball could look like, where they would play, how they would present the game.”