A new professional sports team and arena may be coming to the Austin or Houston metropolitan areas following the announcement by the National Hockey League (NHL) earlier this week.
Building on the success of the Dallas Stars, the NHL is seriously considering adding a second Texas franchise commissioner Gary Bettman said Tuesday, with Houston and Austin both in consideration.
Bettman said the league’s board of governors approved a six-month evaluation process that will determine the feasibility and preferability of expanding to either Houston or Austin. The potential franchise would join the Dallas Stars sharing the Texas market and would be the 9th big four sports franchise in the state.
The league agreed to a deal with the prospective owners, a billionaire family who already owns two professional European soccer clubs in Italy and England. The family estimates after expansion fees and the construction of a new arena investing $3.5 billion total to bring a second NHL team to the Lone Star state.
Bettman has made it clear that the construction of a new arena would be required for either city; he said that most conversations about expansion over the last two years have focused on Houston with Austin just recently entering the discussion.
The exploration agreement is the most significant step taken yet in the adding of a 33rd franchise to the NHL, its third expansion in the last decade.
The league welcomed the Las Vegas Golden Knights in 2017 and the Seattle Kraken in 2021 to much success with both franchises generating hundreds of millions in revenue.
Seattle, like the prospective Texas franchise, required a new arena. The full rebuild of Climate Pledge Arena cost $1.15 billion with several dozen contractors and subcontractors working on the project.
Commissioner Bettman said he doesn’t know yet if there will be pushback on adding a 33rd team from the Board of Governors because there was no formal vote or informal poll taken.
Photo by Pavel Danilyuk from Pexels
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