Reaction: NBA Rockets Owner Says He's Talked to NHL About Bringing a Team to Houston
"We are talking to the NHL, but it's got to be good for both of us," Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta told Bloomberg. Adam Proteau discusses why he thinks it makes sense for Houston to have an NHL team.
As the NHL continues to creep toward expansion, news this week suggests that Houston is primed and ready to host an NHL team.
That narrative got a bump in a recent Bloomberg interview with billionaire Tilman Fertitta, in which the current owner of the NBA’s Houston Rockets revealed he’s had discussions with NHL brass on potentially adding a second team to Texas – whether that’s via an expansion franchise or a relocated team.
"We are talking to the NHL, but it's got to be good for both of us," Fertitta said, noting he’d been looking into acquiring an NHL team since he bought the Rockets seven years ago.
"We just know that when there's a concert downtown, how it activates downtown," Fertitta added. "We know what the Astros do for downtown. We know what even soccer does for downtown."
Although NHL commissioner Gary Bettman recently suggested the potential range of an expansion fee at somewhere between $1.7 billion and $2.5 billion, there’s been no shortage of interested parties, primarily in Salt Lake City, Quebec City, and Atlanta. But the opportunity to bring the first NHL team to Houston may be the most tantalizing proposition of them all for hockey’s top league.
The history of hockey in Houston includes two professional teams that were both named the Houston Aeros; the initial iteration of the franchise operated in the World Hockey Association from 1972 to '78, and the second team with that name played in the International League and AHL from 1994 to 2013.
Setting up shop in Houston would be a low-risk, high-reward move for the NHL. As of 2022, Houston was the fourth-most-populous American city at 2.3 million people, and the chance to have an instant rivalry with the Dallas Stars would be manna from heaven for NHL team owners who’d be the primary beneficiaries.
When the AHL Aeros were in operation in Houston, they consistently finished in the top 10 in the league in attendance, so the potential box-office impact of an NHL team in Houston cannot be easily underestimated. There’s a match waiting to happen between the NHL and Houston, and for many veteran hockey watchers, it’s now a matter of if, not when Houston joins the league.
As we’ve noted before, with so many people in hockey expecting expansion and/or relocation relatively soon, the biggest question is how the NHL would rearrange its divisions to accommodate two new franchises.
At first glance, putting Houston in the Central Division along with the Stars seems to be a no-brainer. However, let’s say, for argument’s sake, that Salt Lake City gets the other new expansion organization. One formerly high-ranking NHL executive suggested to THN.com that a city like Nashville, which is much closer to the East Coast of America than the West Coast, could slide over to the Eastern Conference, and Salt Lake would take its place in the Central and Western Conference.
It’s not a solution that would please every NHL team, but if each owner or ownership group is presented with $125 million in expansion fees, we suspect they’d find a way to learn to live with it. Some of the rivalries the Predators have built up over the years would take a hit with this new mix of teams, but other rivalries would grow in a new league setup. Alternatively, if the Arizona Coyotes aren't able to find a permanent arena and relocate to Houston, Salt Lake or Atlanta – there wouldn’t be a fear of divisional imbalance. If Atlanta or Quebec City gets another team, they’d be an Eastern Conference team as they were before, and either Houston or Salt Lake could host a team in the West.
The notion of Houston and Salt Lake joining the league, one way or another, is quickly gaining momentum. If we saw an announcement of new NHL teams appearing in the next two or three years, not many NHL insiders would be surprised. Whether it’s Fertitta, who owns an NHL team in Houston, or some other mega-rich group or individual, the proposition of a second team in Texas is clearly music to the ears of the 32 current team owners.
Fertitta’s latest comments make it seem like he has the inside track on getting an NHL team. If he does, the growth of hockey in the United States will take a new step forward. The NBA, MLB and NFL all have teams in Dallas and Houston, and before you know it, the NHL could have two Texas teams as well.