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March 28, 2024

NHL opens door for Las Vegas to apply for expansion team

League to accept expansion applications in July and review in September

Gary Bettman

John Locher / AP

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman speaks at a news conference before the 2015 NHL Awards on Wednesday, June 24, 2015, at MGM Grand. The league is opening a formal expansion review process to consider adding franchises to its 30-team league, Bettman announced Wednesday.

Updated Wednesday, June 24, 2015 | 3:39 p.m.

The odds of Las Vegas landing an NHL expansion franchise for the 2017-2018 season continue to increase.

The NHL Board of Governors formally agreed to begin accepting expansion-franchise applications in a meeting Wednesday afternoon at the Bellagio. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman mentioned three cities — Seattle, Quebec City and Las Vegas — as those that have shown the most interest in a press conference hours before the league’s 2015 awards show at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.

Although he repeatedly stressed that expansion isn’t imminent and no one market is more likely than another, Bettman spoke highly of Las Vegas.

“This is a city that has national and international prominence,” Bettman said. “Beyond that, we’re going to have to look a little more deeply than what I just described.”

The NHL will open the application process on July 6 with all requests due by August 10. Bettman revealed four of the major areas on the application as arena, ownership, market viability and business plan.

Las Vegas has answers on all those fronts, largely because of the work put in by billionaire prospective owner Bill Foley’s Hockey Vision Las Vegas group over the last several months and the construction of the MGM/AEG Arena. NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said Foley’s last update to the league indicated pledges for 13,200 season tickets — well above the 10,000-sales benchmark set in a February press conference.

“Based on the drive he conducted, on the surface, it looks like there’s a tremendous amount of interest here,” Bettman said. “It’s not surprising, but I know there were people who were skeptical.”

Bettman reported on Foley’s success at Wednesday’s meeting, but the discussion didn’t move past that on any prospective markets. The Board of Governors is next scheduled to meet in September in New York, where it will review the proposals and decide whether to move forward.

“The board ultimately will determine whether or not there’s going to be any interest in expanding,” Bettman said. “If the conclusion is there is interest from the league’s perspective, there will be a focus on what the terms will be and who the likely successful candidates might be.”

The league’s principals could opt to hold off on expansion, or add multiple teams. It all depends on the applications received by the league.

But it’s widely believed that the NHL would like to add two teams in the west in order to balance its conferences. At the moment, the Western Conference is home to 14 teams as opposed to the East’s 16 franchises.

“One of the factors you would obviously consider in an expansion process is what your footprint looks like and what the alignment would be,” Bettman said. “I don’t think you expand just for symmetry. It’s too important of a business decision.”

Bettman indicated the fee for a new franchise would come in at a minimum $500 million, more than six times the $80 million paid by the Columbus Blue Jackets and Minnesota Wild in 2000. Those two were the most recent expansion teams, and the 15-year wait appears to have tempered any resistance with expanding the league.

None of the existing owners objected to exploring expansion, and some of the usual apprehensions are nonexistent.

“I don’t think there’s any concern at all among our managers or ownership groups that there’s a lack of talent,” Daly said. “I think the level of talent in the league has never been stronger. I think all clubs have the ability to have four competitive lines, so I don’t think talent dilution is a concern at all.”

Concerns about Las Vegas housing a team have faded too. Bettman supported Foley’s foray into gauging the market, but was unsure how it would turn out.

It’s been all positive news since then for Las Vegas.

“People came away with the impression that this community will respond to professional sports, to hockey, like many other significant cities across North America,” Bettman said. “There are people who live and work here, raise kids here, have businesses here who would like something communal from a sports standpoint to get behind. That’s what the ticket drive appears to have demonstrated.”

Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.

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