Hot on the heels of NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman’s public denial of moving the Florida Panthers to Quebec and his statement that NHL expansion is not going to be considered in the immediate future, comes news that the NHL has approved potential Las Vegas franchise owner Bill Foley’s plan to conduct a season ticket drive in Las Vegas to see what support for an NHL team exists.
Bettman of course continues in public to play down the possibility of any future NHL expansion but his approval of Foley’s ticket drive can only mean that behind the scenes, NHL expansion is very much on the league’s plate.
Actually it is probably been around for quite a few years. In 2010, Bettman made a tour of the three ex-NHL cities who lost their teams in the 1990s, Quebec, Winnipeg, and Hartford and spelled out terms in which the cities could get re-admitted to the NHL. The terms were realistic and not unreasonable; good ownership, a proper NHL arena, and an adequate fan-base. Since all three cities already had a proven fan-base, he was really asking for compliance on the first two terms.
Whether he made this tour on his own initiative or whether he did it with the consent of the NHL Board of Governors remains unknown. Whether he did it also with an eye to the possible collapse of current NHL franchises as would happen in Atlanta and nearly happened in Phoenix is also unknown. Also what remains unknown is whether he believed that any of cities would actually comply with his terms.
But regardless of any of the answers to the above questions, the tour was at least the known start of unofficial NHL expansion. Such a tour would not have occurred if the league did not want more teams.
Winnipeg had already built a small arena for its AHL team and the behind-the-scenes negotiations with future owners Dave Thomson and Mark Chipman during these years meant that when Atlanta collapsed, Winnipeg was ready. The only surprise was that Bettman approved an arena built for an AHL team as being suitable for the NHL.
Meanwhile Quebec has also been complying with Bettman’s terms. They are currently building an 18,500 seat arena and have lined up a suitable owner, Quebecor to bid for a franchise. The NHL and Bettman can hardly renege on their unofficial commitment.
The only awkward obstacle is that Quebec is an eastern city and the NHL would prefer to balance up its conferences by admitting western teams. This means that if expansion occurs, to honor its unofficial Quebec commitment, the NHL either has to expand by four teams, Quebec and three western cities, or expand to Quebec and a western team now and balance up its conferences later in a future expansion.
It has also led to rumors that the NHL will shift the Florida Panthers, currently only averaging approximately 13,000 fans for their home games to Quebec as a way of honoring its unofficial Quebec commitment.
So far Quebec, Las Vegas, Seattle, and Toronto (Markham) have publicly confirmed that they will bid for an NHL franchise should the league announce official expansion plans. Other cities may be waiting for such an announcement before making their intentions known.
The idea for a Las Vegas ticket drive is a sound one. Of the four cities who have so far expressed interest in an NHL team, Las Vegas is the most questionable. The other three cities are sure-fire winners. Las Vegas is a city more along the lines of most of the new franchises set up during Bettman’s time as Commissioner.
In these cities, hockey is an unfamiliar sport and the main purpose of placing an NHL franchise in them was to prove that NHL hockey was a “big four” United States sport and to convince American television networks that the NHL merited a lucrative “big four” American television contract. Some of these cities have been successful, but in other cases they have consistently lost money and worst of all in Atlanta and nearly in Phoenix, had to be withdrawn.
So finding out if Las Vegas will really support an NHL team now could prevent a costly expansion mistake in the future.
But the Las Vegas ticket drive proves that expansion is definitely a hot topic at least behind the scenes for the NHL, if not an already unofficial NHL policy.
Before the “mortgage meltdown” it seemed that all “big four” leagues would eventually expand to a symmetrical number of 40. It means that all four leagues would adopt the current NFL structure: 2 Conferences of 4 divisions with 4 teams (32 in total). This structure makes future expansion easy to accommodate; 5 teams in each division (40 in total) or even 6 teams in each division (48 in total) though those numbers may be quite a ways away.
The current NHL structure is awkward so it makes sense for the NHL to expand, at least by two teams and then realign into the NFL structure.
There are no shortage of cities. There are nearly 60 North American cities whose metropolitan area could support major league franchises. And especially in the NHL and NFL’s cases there is possible future expansion to Europe. So the current major leagues are only a fraction of the size they could be.
With visions of expansion money dancing NHL owners’ heads, unofficial NHL expansion moves ahead, the Las Vegas ticket drive being the next step to what fans in hockey-starved cites believe is a chance for them to cheer for a new home town NHL team.
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