The NHL may be getting a 33rd team in the not-so-distant future.
Gary Bettman shared with the NHL Board of Governors on Tuesday that the league is beginning a six-month exploration process into Houston and Austin as potential expansion cities, per Elliotte Friedman. The evaluation will explore the feasibility of a successful NHL franchise in the cities and determine which would be best suited.
The NHL also announced that it has agreed with the Friedkin family to be the prospective owners of the new team. A Texas expansion would be a $3.5 billion investment by the family, a total including the expansion fee and the cost of building a new arena that both cities would need.
The board did not vote on the agreement, but the league discussed the situation with the executive committee, which backed the terms of the current term sheet with the Friedkins. The Board of Governors would vote if the NHL and the Friedkins reached a “joint conclusion” during the six-month evaluation.
The Friedkin family, specifically Dan Friedkin, CEO of the Friedkin Group, has been interested in owning an NHL expansion team for some time and has been in discussions with the league for nearly two years. The Friedkin Group already owns two professional sports teams: Italian soccer club AS Roma and English Premier League club Everton.
“Each city brings unique attributes that would make a new team a huge success. Both have the infrastructure, passionate fan bases, and economic strength needed to support a championship-caliber franchise for years to come,” the Friedkin Group shared in a statement. “We have wanted for some time to bring an NHL team to Texas, and we are excited that the process has now begun.”
“Selecting a new market for an NHL franchise is a special and important responsibility, and we are grateful to the league for their faith in us and their support. Working with Commissioner Bettman and the NHL, we will undertake a principled, disciplined, and methodical process to ensure we find the right long-term home for this new franchise.”
Both markets have strong potential for large fanbases and should already have some brewing hockey interest.
Houston is the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the US. The city will already be getting a hockey team for the 2026-27 season, with the NAHL announcing the move and renaming of the North Iowa Bulls to the Houston Bulls in March.
Austin is home to the Dallas Stars‘ AHL affiliate, the Texas Stars, who play in the H-E-B Center in Cedar Park, a suburb of the city. They are the largest market without a franchise from any of the four major sporting leagues (NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB), with a population of nearly one million.
As for any potential turf wars with the Stars, Bettman explained that they do not own territorial rights to all of Texas, and that Dallas would not prevent expansion to Austin or Houston.
“My guess is they’ll think it’s good for hockey in Texas,” Bettman said.
Atlanta and Arizona have also been considered for possible expansion franchises, but they are not as far along in the process, Bettman said. He emphasized that the exploration of Texas markets “does not rule in or rule out Atlanta or Arizona, it simply means they’re on a slightly different track. Tomorrow we could all wake up, and they say, ‘You know what, that looks so good we want to do the same thing.'”
Both cities have formerly had NHL franchises and have often been mentioned when expansion is discussed. The Arizona Coyotes relocated to Utah at the end of the 2023-24 season, largely due to ownership issues and the lack of a secure, consistent arena. The Coyotes are currently considered an inactive franchise, and the NHL retains the rights to its name, history, and intellectual property, with the aim of future reactivation.
Atlanta has had two NHL teams, both of which relocated. The Atlanta Flames played for eight years, from 1972 to 1980, before moving to Calgary, and the Atlanta Thrashers played from 1999 to 2010 before relocating and rebranding as the Winnipeg Jets. Bettman has previously stated that past failures will not deter future expansion to Atlanta, and the city has been making moves to prepare itself for a franchise in the past year, including a redevelopment proposal in Alpharetta and an approved plan in Forsyth County for potential NHL-ready arenas — one of the biggest qualifiers for the league.
While it is possible, and seemingly likely, another expansion team would follow the potential Texas expansion, Bettman also said that he is not concerned about having an odd number of teams, stating that symmetry shouldn’t dictate expansion. “You expand if you think it makes sense and enhances what the League has,” he said.
The NHL has had success with recent expansion, even when it caused a couple of seasons of uneven divisions. The Vegas Golden Knights, who became the league’s 31st team in 2017, have won a Stanley Cup and made the Finals in three of their nine years as a franchise. In their inaugural season, the Golden Knights averaged 103.9% of arena capacity (fourth in the league). They also generated an estimated $65.1 million in ticket revenue (about 19% less than the Chicago Blackhawks, who were number one in attendance that season), per Samford University.
There’s also been a lot of on-ice success in warmer-climate hockey markets recently, with just one Stanley Cup champion in the past seven years hailing from a “traditional” market (Colorado in 2022), while the other six came from Florida, Nevada, and North Carolina.
The league has been growing consistently, with record revenues estimated at up to $8 billion for the 2025-26 season. And they seem to have their sights set on continued expansion to keep that number rising, with three (net two, when you consider the Coyotes) teams joining the league in the past nine years after 16 years with none, amid seemingly endless speculation and rumors.
Bettman has focused on the potential contributions of expansion franchises to league strength when considering moves and seems confident that a team in Texas would be beneficial. In the next six months, the NHL should have a more solid answer to that question.
“The fact is, as we’ve talked about all along, expansion depends on ownership, market, arena, and what it does to make the League stronger,” Bettman said. “If you’re sitting in the room and the first three are checked, those first three boxes, you’ll then say to yourself, ‘What does it do to make the League stronger?’ Houston, South Texas, is a major market nationally.”
