{"id":17412,"date":"2025-06-26T22:16:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T22:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/17412\/"},"modified":"2025-06-26T22:16:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T22:16:09","slug":"nhl-expansion-team-fees-will-reach-at-least-2b-league-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/17412\/","title":{"rendered":"NHL Expansion Team Fees Will Reach at Least $2B, League Says"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe NHL is not actively seeking to add any teams right now, but owners received a relevant update on potential expansion<\/a> at Wednesday\u2019s board of governors meeting in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\n\tExpansion fees for a new NHL franchise would be at least $2 billion, and the new owners would need to additionally commit at least $1 billion toward an arena if the potential city requires one, according to two sources familiar with the process who were granted anonymity because the details are private. Six potential groups for expansion were discussed at the meeting.<\/p>\n

\n\tCommissioner Gary Bettman<\/a> further discussed expansion when addressing reporters after the meetings. \u201cWe have no pending applications, and we\u2019re not seeking to initiate a formal process at this point,\u201d Bettman said. He added that they talked generally about price, \u201cbut nothing we need to get into [with reporters].\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe NHL declined to comment on expansion beyond Bettman\u2019s comments to reporters.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe NHL operated as a 30-team league between 2000 and 2017; the Vegas Golden Knights<\/a> started play in the 2017-18 season. The expansion process for the Golden Knights officially started in June 2015, and 12 months later, Bill Foley\u2019s group agreed to pay $500 million for what would be the first major pro sports franchise in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn December 2018, the NHL Board of Governors voted unanimously to approve a Seattle expansion team, with David Bonderman and Jerry Bruckheimer the lead investors in the group that paid a $650 million expansion fee. The Kraken started play in the 2021-22 season.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn November, Sportico\u2019s NHL team valuations<\/a> had the average franchise worth $1.79 billion, up 37% from 2023. The jump, following a 29% gain the previous year, represents a 92% increase since 2021, when the average team was worth $934 million.<\/p>\n

\n\tNHL team finances got a further boost in March when the league agreed to a 12-year, $7.7 billion agreement<\/a> with Rogers Communications for the league\u2019s Canadian broadcast rights. The total and per-year averages are more than double the league\u2019s current agreement with Rogers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOnce Seattle was established, the NHL needed to find solutions for its two biggest problem franchises, Ottawa and Arizona. In 2023, Michael Andlauer bought the Senators for $950 million and has made progress on plans for a new downtown arena. Last year, Ryan Smith bought the Arizona Coyotes and moved the team to Salt Lake City for $1.2 billion, including a $200 million relocation fee shared with other owners.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe latest NHL team sale was the Tampa Bay Lightning\u2014a group of investors led by Doug Ostrover and Marc Lipschultz bought just over 50% of the franchise at a valuation of $1.8 billion in October. For the next three years, longtime owner Jeff Vinik will keep full control of the franchise and serve as the team\u2019s governor before control transfers to Ostrover and Lipschultz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NHL is not actively seeking to add any teams right now, but owners received a relevant update…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17413,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[15980,16870,293,2999,62,67,132,68,3116],"class_list":{"0":"post-17412","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-expansion","9":"tag-gary-bettman","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-seattle-kraken","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us","16":"tag-vegas-golden-knights"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114751982141932934","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}