The NHL doesn\u2019t appear to have a desire to remain a 32-team league.<\/p>\n
NHL deputy commissioner\u00a0Bill Daly went back on the record about potential expansion this past week during an interview with The Athletic\u2019s Michael Russo<\/a>. Daly spoke with Russo while the two were in Milan, Italy, for the European NHL Player Media Tour.<\/p>\n \u201cWe haven\u2019t said no to anybody,\u201d Daly told Russo<\/a>. \u201cAnd there are multiple entities within multiple markets that are talking to us. None has gotten to the level of having a full proposal that we think is worthy of sharing with the Board of Governors or the executive committee. One of those could happen in the future. I semi-expect it to happen in the future, but it hasn\u2019t happened yet.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd certainly, none of those candidates or applicants have been given any kind of timeline that they had to meet. So, it\u2019s kind of an open-ended process at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n Daly has previously mentioned<\/a> that the NHL is represented in fewer US markets than other professional leagues in the country. Past statements from Bettman and Daly<\/a>\u00a0revealed that cities like Atlanta, Houston, Cincinnati, Kansas City, and Quebec City have all maintained interest in an expansion squad.<\/p>\n The Atlanta bid, in particular, appears to have the most momentum behind it, following local government approval earlier this summer for a $3 billion-plus development with a planned arena<\/a>. The plans are being spearheaded by Krause Sports and Entertainment, with CEO Vernon Krause meeting with league officials last month.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been meeting,\u201d Daly said. \u201cI\u2019m sure, maybe, we did have a meeting with Atlanta in July. May have. I mean, expressions of interest continue to give them audiences with us, pitch us on the merits, and why we should be considering.\u201d<\/p>\n Atlanta previously housed the Atlanta Flames for eight seasons, who then relocated to Calgary in 1980. They then had the Atlanta Thrashers for 11 seasons before relocation and becoming the Winnipeg Jets in 2011.<\/p>\n Among the top 10 largest metropolitan areas in the United States based on the 2020 census, only Houston (5th), Atlanta (8th), and Phoenix (10th) are currently without an NHL franchise.<\/p>\n The NHL is approaching 10 years since adding the Vegas Golden Knights (2017) and five years since adding the Seattle Kraken (2021) as expansion franchises. Daly and NHL commissioner Gary Bettman have typically been reluctant to discuss further expansion at recent press conferences<\/a>, but Daly\u2019s comments to Russo may signal a slight shift in attitude.<\/p>\n For expansion to occur, the NHL\u2019s board of governors will have to agree to a set expansion fee, which has consistently risen over the past seven years. The\u00a0fees for Vegas, Seattle, and the Utah Hockey Club were $500 million, $650 million,\u00a0and $1.2 billion, respectively<\/a>. The next fee is widely expected to cross the $2 billion mark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NHL doesn\u2019t appear to have a desire to remain a 32-team league. NHL deputy commissioner\u00a0Bill Daly went…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112375,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-112374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}