Latest NHL expansion update is bad news for Canadian hockey fans

The Austin, Texas, market is among those interested in joining the next round of National Hockey League expansion, reports Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff.

The NHL recently began cautiously expanding beyond the 30-team norm it had maintained for most of the 2020s, following a 17-year hiatus since the introduction of the Blue Jackets and Wild into the league. Most anticipated that the recent additions of the Golden Knights (2017) and the Kraken (2021) would be enough to satiate new markets for a while.

Skyrocketing franchise valuations have more than tripled prospective expansion fees, to the point where the league has informed interested parties that they’re commanding a $2B payment for a 33rd franchise, per Seravalli. That’s four times more than the $500K Vegas paid for entry and a much more aggressive increase than the Kraken faced at a $650K expansion fee.

The league has already had early success venturing into a new market with the cobbled-together relocation and sale of the Arizona Coyotes, which has become the franchise now known as the Utah Mammoth. There has also been considerable public interest from an Atlanta-based group to become the NHL’s 33rd team, with the group requesting a formal expansion process last year. A second Atlanta-based group, led by Vernon Krause, is further ahead in the effort to bring the league back to Georgia and recently cleared a significant hurdle in building a new arena in Forsyth County.

An expansion into the Eastern Conference in Atlanta would presumably be coupled in near succession with a Western Conference market. That’s where Austin could come in, particularly if the Phoenix/Arizona market continues to struggle with constructing an NHL-ready arena to entice the league to return there. The league has remained adamant that it won’t actively solicit expansion bids or open a formal expansion process and is under no pressure to add teams. Still, it will consider compelling applications sent its way.

According to Seravalli, the league informed the Board of Governors this week that it has received legitimate expressions of interest from five markets: Atlanta, Austin, Houston, Indianapolis and New Orleans. For Canadian fans hoping for an eighth NHL team north of the border, it still doesn’t appear that’s in the cards anytime soon.