One of the hot-button topics going around the NHL right now besides, sports gambling and neck guards, is potential expansion.
The NHL went from 30 teams to 32 teams with the additions of the Vegas Golden Knights in the 2017-18 season and the Seattle Kraken in the 2021-22 season. Before that the NHL had not expanded since 2000 and the last relocation was when the then-Atlanta Thrashers moved to Winnipeg to be the reincarnation of the Jets in 2011.
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And even before that, you could call it a boom of expansion in the early 1990s when San Jose, Florida, Tampa Bay, Ottawa came back into the league, and Anaheim. Then later on in the late 1990s to 2000 Nashville, Columbus, Atlanta, and Minnesota joined the league.
The NHL and NHL are the only sports league to have 32 teams. The NHL’s balance is perfect in the Eastern and Western Conferences. And while expansion is probably coming because the dollars are just so great not to pass up, the NHL also needs to reestablish itself and get back on track coming out of COVID.
As Commissioner Gary Bettman noted during the Stadium Series press conference, the NHL is seeing record attendance this season. NHLPA Executive Director Marty Walsh backed that up and said the ratings are tracking to be even higher than last year.
And the product is in a good place. Let the salary cap go up this coming off-season and potentially even more down the road before expanding to cities. Taking personal opinion out of it when it comes to Atlanta, we get why the NHL is trying to go there.
Atlanta is a major television like Phoenix is for the Coyotes. But like with settling in when it comes to the salary cap coming out of COVID, the NHL needs to get the Arizona Coyotes situation settled first before expansion can come.
When asked about potential NHL expansion and having more hockey towns on Wednesday’s edition of the Pat McAfee Show, Commissioner Bettman again did not rule it out, but he did note it is not a priority.
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Pat McAfee: “Okay, so let’s talk about that a little bit because I think the NHL, what you guys do with expansion teams should be the standard barrier in every standard bearer in every other sport. You expand into new cities most recently, obviously Las Vegas. They go on to win the Stanley Cup just five years later. You have the Expansion Draft. You get great players in there.
You’re at 32 teams right now, obviously, is that, where do you feel 32 or are we expanding more are we doing because it feels like that’s been a homerun for the NHL, and how do we get more hockey towns?”
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman: “That’s a great question and I have to answer it two different ways.
One, the success that Vegas and Seattle have had is actually no coincidence. You know, our competitive balance based on our system of the salary cap and revenue sharing gives us the most extraordinary competitive balance. You see it in the races in the regular season to who makes the playoffs. I mean every one of our regular season games has meaning in terms of getting into the playoffs. And then once you get into the playoffs as we’ve seen anything can happen.
And so we made the decision. The owners made the decision. Unlike typical expansions and every other sport including our own historically, you admit the new team, you give them a mediocre draft. And there’s initial enthusiasm for three, four years, but the losing gets old. And then 10 years the team gets competitive. We decided because of our competitive balance, we didn’t want to bring in teams that couldn’t be competitive.
Bill Foley predicted the owner of the Golden Knights, that he would bring a Stanley Cup to Vegas within six years, and he did it. Vegas has turned into a great sports town and hockey town. We were the first ones in. People ridiculed us at first they thought we would nuts, but we always believed that Vegas, which at the time I think was the largest city without a major one of the major four sports there and people wanted to have a professional sports experience. And now everybody else is gravitating. Obviously. The Raiders came, baseball’s gonna come, and the NBA is talking about it. I mean, imitation, I suppose, is the highest form of flattery in terms of moving forward.
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We get expressions of interest all the time. We’re getting it from Houston, Salt Lake City, Atlanta, Quebec City. Expansion isn’t on the forefront of what we’re thinking about. I take meetings all the time. I listen to expressions of interest. I’m not ruling it out, but it’s not something we’re focused on or we’re pushing to do right now. We like where we are, we think we have a good balance. And you know, it also makes us a little bit different in terms of the competitive landscape. And even television ratings. Seven of our franchises are in Canada. And so our footprint is a little smaller in the US than the other three majors. But we think we’re doing just fine and all of our franchises are stable, healthy and competitive.”
Again why is there a need to change something when the game has never been better?
We get it that hockey is a business and businesses make money, but how much is too much? Not to mention it is only a matter of time before these general managers figure out not to make the same mistakes they did in the previous two expansion drafts.
Again NHL expansion is probably coming, but there is no need for it at this time.
