NEW YORK (AP) — The NHL took the first step toward expansion in Texas earlier this week, agreeing to terms with billionaire Dan Friedkin and his family to explore the feasibility of putting a franchise in Houston or Austin.
Far enough from the Dallas Stars, who relocated from Minnesota in 1993, a new team would not interfere with their territorial rights. And the league has shown no fear of adding one team at a time, so No. 33 does not have to come
with No. 34.
“Symmetry I don’t think should necessarily govern expansion,” Commissioner Gary Bettman said Tuesday. "You expand if you think it makes sense and enhances what the league has.”
Money is the obvious answer. Bettman said the total investment of the project would be some $3.5 billion, which would include expansion fees paid to established owners along with the cost of building a new arena.
The Houston Rockets' arena downtown is publicly owned but controlled by team owner Tilman Fertitta's Clutch City Sports and Entertainment group. The home of the American Hockey League's Texas Stars, in the Austin suburb of Cedar Park, has a capacity of 8,000 that is a little over half the size of the NHL's smallest current rink (Winnipeg).
“I would be surprised if the NHL would be OK with an expansion team that does not have a new arena," said Brian Mills, an associate professor at the University of Texas who teaches courses on sports economics and strategy. “The revenue potential with the luxury boxes and the way that they set those up and the money that they like to extract from the local cities is way too large to pass up.”
They are also huge markets. Houston at nearly 2.4 million is the fourth-most-populated U.S. city; Austin at just over 1 million is in the top 12.
“Obviously it makes sense if you’re a sports league to have a franchise in the nation’s fifth-largest metro area and one that is growing rapidly," said Holy Cross professor Victor Matheson, an expert in sports economics. “Houston obviously makes sense in general as a destination for any league.”
Austin is smaller but has doubled its population since the mid-1990s and has seen an infusion of people over the past five years. Only eight of the NHL's existing markets are bigger.
“It’s becoming more and more of a tech city, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more hockey fans here than there used to be,” Mills said. “I would imagine there’s some market for the NHL here in Austin, particularly more than when it was a sleepy, small town capital of Texas 30 years ago.”
When hockey was picking up in popularity in the 1960s and ‘70s and the NHL went from six teams to 18, the rival World Hockey Association was founded and Houston got a franchise when the one in Dayton, Ohio, failed to get off the ground.
The Aeros' inaugural season was in 1972-78, and they were best known for “Mr. Hockey” Gordie Howe playing for them along with sons Mark and Marty. They won four Avco World Trophies as WHA champions before folding.
An AHL team using the same name existed in Houston from 1994-2013. The Texas Stars have played in Austin since '09.
“There’s some interest of hockey,” University of Houston economics professor Steven G. Craig said. “Houston is full of immigrants from around the country and around the world. And Austin is sort of similar in the sense of a pretty heterogeneous population.”
Growing the sport in another so-called non-traditional spot is a big benefit. Smashing successes in places like Las Vegas and Tampa, Florida, show what hockey can do across the Sun Belt when strong ownership is involved.
“Southern cities have been doing pretty well now these days in the NHL: the Lightning and the Panthers,” Mills said of the two teams in Florida. “You’ve got some pretty good hockey teams after some pretty miserable failures with some earlier expansion to the South.”
Abandoning the second try in Atlanta (the Thrashers from 2000-11) was more a failure of ownership than the market. The same could be said in Arizona, where a revolving door of owners led to arena miscues and eventually the Coyotes being sold and moved to Salt Lake City in 2024 to become the Utah Mammoth.
A 33rd team also means 20-23 more NHL players and hopefuls in the minors. The changing landscape of hockey development at the junior and college levels has the potential to churn more talent through the pipeline in North America than ever before, along with players coming from Europe.
“You do have a pretty big pool of players,” Matheson said. “I’m not particularly worried about diluting the talent there because I think there’s a lot of skill."
After this six-month exploratory phase is complete, recent history suggests a season-ticket drive would be one of the subsequent steps. Ticket drives validated interest that led to the Vegas Golden Knights and Seattle Kraken.
The Board of Governors would need to approve moving forward in the process. No vote has yet been held, though the executive committee supported exploring Houston and Austin.
And while the NHL is comfortable with unbalanced Eastern and Western conferences, getting to 34 teams seems inevitable if it goes to 33. Bettman said the board on Tuesday was updated on situations in Atlanta and Arizona, and it would be no surprise if one of those places got another crack at it.
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