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NHL Admits That Expansion To Las Vegas A Possibility

By Catherine Silverman

Jun 24, 2014; Las Vegas, NV, USA; Los Angeles Kings former player Luc Robitaille, left, poses with current Kings players Dustin Brown, center, and Anze Kopitar, and the Kings mascot "Bailey," while holding the Stanley Cup on the red carpet of the 2014 NHL Awards ceremony at Wynn Las Vegas. Mandatory Credit: Stephen R. Sylvanie-USA TODAY Sports
Jun 24, 2014; Las Vegas, NV, USA; Los Angeles Kings former player Luc Robitaille, left, poses with current Kings players Dustin Brown, center, and Anze Kopitar, and the Kings mascot "Bailey," while holding the Stanley Cup on the red carpet of the 2014 NHL Awards ceremony at Wynn Las Vegas. Mandatory Credit: Stephen R. Sylvanie-USA TODAY Sports /
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NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly admits to meeting with potential investors in Sin City

It’s been a hot topic since this summer- and apparently, the rumor-mongers weren’t so rumor monger-y after all.

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In a recent interview with NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly, Daly admitted to meeting with what he referred to as a potential ownership group in Las Vegas, with whom he talked finances and toured the contruction site for the $350 million dollar arena MGM is footing the bill for.

Daly did admit that there were a number of concerns that would need to be addressed and evaluated before anything moved forward, of course. The top priority would be ensuring a solid, consistent fan base within the local residents- Daly stressed that the league would not rely on tourism to fuel ticket sales, no matter how rich the tourists may be.

He also touched on the issue to game start times in a city with a predominantly nighttime-based economy. He suggested that were a team to move to Sin City, game times would have to be scheduled to accommodate the fact that a large portion of residents work mainly late night hours.

Finally, he briefly discussed the issue of sports wagering in the city, which many have discussed as a major hindering factor in professional sports teams heading to the Nevada hub. It seems as if this could be one of the biggest issues preventing any kind of NHL move to the city, although the possibility of excluding a LV team’s games from any wagering was voiced as an option- UNLV has done this in the past, and it was met with some success. Of course, there is a huge jump from collegiate athletics betting to professional team betting, but the concept is not unheard of.

Whether Las Vegas ends up being the new home to an NHL team or not, though, it’s likely that the city will still be in close proximity to any new league additions- there are currently two fewer teams in the NHL’s Western Conference, which many believe to be an intentional tool to ease new teams into the league in the West.

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