NHL Officially Awards Las Vegas a Franchise and Becomes First Major Sports League in the City

The National Hockey League made it official on Wednesday afternoon and became the first major sports league to place a franchise in Las Vegas. 

Commissioner Gary Bettman made the announcement, in the ballroom at Encore at Wynn Las Vegas, that the league’s 31^st franchise, would be Las Vegas. The new franchise set to begin play in the 2017-2018 NHL season.  

The Board of Governors voted unanimously to approve the franchise during their meetings on Wednesday. The NHL becomes the first of the four major North American sports leagues to have a team in Las Vegas. The NHL last expanded before the 2000-2001 season, when the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Minnesota Wild began play. 

Billionaire businessman, Bill Foley, who spearheaded the Las Vegas expansion bid, will now pay the league the 500 million-dollar expansion fee. Foley is also the team’s principle owner. 

The expansion fee will be distributed equally amongst the other 30 franchises in the NHL. The approval of Las Vegas comes just two days, shy of the one-year anniversary when the league began the formal expansion process. Only Las Vegas and Quebec City were able to make it through the stages of the expansion process. 

Bettman said, “The name of Bill’s website was ‘VegasWantsHockey.com.’ Starting today, Vegas has hockey, NHL hockey.”   

Foley hopes to have the name and logo of the franchise in place by the start of the 2016-2017 season, so that they can start selling merchandise. He mentioned that his preference is Black Knights, due to his ties to the United States Military Academy, as a West Point graduate. He plans to work with the NHL though to come up with an appropriate nickname for the franchise.

Foley said, “Our great sports town now has a major league franchise, the NHL. It is the best of the leagues. It is a legendary league. Las Vegas is my home, along with 2.3 million other people. We want everyone to be a fan. We are dedicated to it. We will leave no stone unturned in our dedication and pursuit of hockey here in Las Vegas, not just for our team, but for our community.”

 

The Board of Governors also deferred the bid of Quebecor, Inc., which had hoped to bring NHL hockey back to Quebec City. Deputy Commissioner, Bill Daly noted that there is not any formal plan to bring back the Quebec City bid. Bettman also mentioned that there was not any plan to relocate another franchise to Quebec either. 

Bettman said, “There is no doubt as to the passion for hockey, particularly NHL hockey, in Quebec City. There is no doubt as to the Videotron Centre as a home arena for a team. And there is no doubt regarding the ownership credentials, or the eagerness to own a team of Quebecor, which has been an outstanding league partner. These components, the ones in control of the Quebec City applicant, are first rate. The decision to defer, however, were based on the elements over which Quebec City and the Quebec City group had no control whatsoever.”

Two of those factors include the fact of an imbalance within the conferences of the league, making it tough to bring in two teams. The struggling Canadian dollar, which as of Wednesday was at 78 cents compared to the U.S. dollar, also played a part in the deferral of the Quebec City bid.

Las Vegas becomes the eighth team in the Pacific Division and 15^th in the Western Conference, while the Eastern Conference already has 16 teams, split up in two divisions of eight. Both Bettman and Daly stressed the importance on balance amongst the conferences in the league. 

Quebecor’s Chief Executive Officer, Pierre Dion said, “What we have to understand from the words, or being on hold, is that we will keep a discussion with the NHL. We are very close to them, we have a great relationship with them, so we will keep talking. That is how we have to interpret the ‘deferred’ and ‘on hold.’”

The Las Vegas team will play at the brand new state of the art T-Mobile Arena, located just west of the Las Vegas Strip. The arena opened this past April and has a capacity of 17,368 for hockey. Bettman said, “It is a great venue and it was built with hockey in mind.”

Since Foley launched a season ticket drive about 16 months ago, the organization has received more than 14,000 deposits and sold all of the luxury seats inside T-Mobile Arena. This past week alone, they have sold nearly 400 more season tickets. 

Foley expects about 85 to 90 percent of the crowd to be season ticket holders. He said, “I am convinced we are going to be full every night, and particularly after a year or two when we have demonstrated a real winning attitude and we are performing on behalf of the city of Las Vegas.”  

 

Foley said that he will work quickly to setup a hockey operations department. He also stressed that he will continue to work with the NHL to make sure they understand the rules and are compliant with all the bylaws and avoid any tampering charges. 

He added, “You will see a lot of action here over the next 30 days, or 45 days, but we want to be careful on how we do it. We do not want to tamper. We want to work with the league and get a lot of advice.”  

The league also announced the rules regarding the expansion draft on Wednesday as well. The goal of the expansion draft will be to give the Las Vegas franchise the best opportunity to build a roster that can help them achieve success quickly. 

Bettman said, “The team coming into the most competitive league in sports, will have a roster that will be competitive more quickly than prior expansions.” 

In order to get to that point, Las Vegas will have to select one player for each of the other 30 existing teams’ rosters. Those players must include 14 forwards, nine defensemen and three goaltenders. 20 of those players must have contracts that run through the 2017-2018 NHL season, and the average annual salary should be a minimum of 60 percent of the 73 million cap for the 2016-2017 season.

The earliest that Las Vegas can buyout a players’ contract, would be the summer of 2018. 

Before the expansion draft, the existing teams will have the option to protect either seven forwards, three defensemen and one goaltender, or eight skaters and one goalie. Players with a “no-movement” clause in their contracts, at the time of the expansion draft must be protected and count towards the team’s protection list. The exception to this rule would be if the player decides to waive his NMC. 

The teams will be required to release their protected list no later than 5:00 pm on June 17, 2017. Las Vegas would then be required to release their selections three days later at 5:00 pm on June 20. The NHL will then announce the Las Vegas roster on June 21, 2017. 

All of the forwards and defensemen that are exposed for the expansion draft, must be under contract for the 2017-2018 season and at least one defenseman and two forwards had to have played 40 or more games during the 2016-2017 season or at least 70 over the previous two. 

Goaltenders are allowed to be either under contract for the 2017-2018 season or scheduled to become a restricted free agent in the summer of 2017. If a team wants to expose an RFA, they must first offer him his qualifying offer before they can submit their protected list.

Any first and second year professionals, as well as unsigned draft picks are exempt from the expansion draft and do not have to be protected. 

Las Vegas will be part of the Draft Lottery, receiving the same odds as the team that finishes with the third fewest points in the league during the 2016-2017 season. They will be guaranteed to not fall below the sixth pick in the first round and get the third in each subsequent round. 

Foley added, “This is Las Vegas’ team. We have 2.2 or 2.3 million local residents and we sold 14,000 season tickets, with season-ticket deposits, when we did not have a team and we did not have an arena. That is the kind of level of dedication that the people of Las Vegas have shown in support of NHL hockey. It went a long way for us to making progress with the NHL. Las Vegas is hockey ready. We are convinced of it. We know it.”