The NHL is on the move – this time to Fabulous Las Vegas!
Or at least there are a multitude of signs currently pointing that way.
One of those signs is NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly's recent trip to the Land of Sin and Overindulgence – ostensibly for other business, but he just so happened to meet "again with a potential ownership group that has expressed an interest in owning a franchise," according to a report from Michael Russo of the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Daly, in an interview in his Manhattan office, said he also got a chance to tour the site next to New York New York Hotel and Casino where a $350 million, 20,000-seat arena is being built by MGM Resorts. MGM also has had preliminary talks with the potential owners who want the arena to house their prospective NHL team. The arena is expected to be completed by 2016, and Daly looked at suite mock-ups: "It's nice," he said.
Were the league to be successful in their efforts, they would be the first of the four major professional U.S. sports to establish a franchise in Vegas. HNGN initially reported on the potential for establishing an NHL team there last month.
Franchise values and revenues are at their highest for the league in years – expansion, to many, seems like a foregone conclusion even though the NHL's Board of Governors has yet to offer their approval.
Adding to the seemingly inevitable nature of the move, Daly said that, with the current structure of the league - 16 teams in the Eastern Conference and 14 in the Western Conference - expansion, were it to happen, would have to occur in the West.
The only question that remains is, would there be local support for an NHL franchise in Las Vegas?
"What's difficult on making a call on Vegas is it's such a unique market. It's really hard to know," Daly said. "The owners are going to have to be satisfied that the prospects of putting a franchise there are good and the fundamentals are solid.
"Clearly we think for a Las Vegas market to support a professional sports franchise, you need the support of locals."
Otherwise, all signs point to a big move by the NHL to the sports gambling epicenter of the world.
