It looks like the NHL and commissioner Gary Bettman are on the brink of expanding beyond 32 teams.
NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly told The Athletic this week that the league is "moving forward" with expansion "in Texas". Daly's comments and other recent reporting indicates that the top options for the 33rd team in NHL expansion conversations will be two cities in Texas: Austin and Houston.
"We’re moving forward in Texas. I expect ultimately we’ll be in a position to bring something to the board to get their view on it. So, that’s proceeding at a pace. We’ll probably get together with the group again in September and kind of see where they are in the process and what they want us to do to help, to the extent they need anything."Bill Daly
And if the NHL does eventually grow to 33 teams, it would raise another question: how long would the league want to remain at an odd number before adding a 34th franchise?
There are plenty of intriguing cities and TV markets across North America that could make compelling cases for an NHL franchise. Some are former NHL cities looking for another chance, while others could give the league an opportunity to break into a new market altogether.
With Houston and Austin leading the conversation for team No. 33, here's a look at some cities that could factor into the expansion discussion in the NHL this time around.
The 33rd team candidates: Houston and Austin
Let's start off this list by talking about the elephant in the room when it pertains to NHL expansion candidates in the 2020s. The recent reporting and statements from Daly and the NHL's commissioners office saying that Houston and Austin are already in the works for expansion plans in the 2020s means that it's all but certain that another Texas city will be getting a team in the very near future.
"If we finalize that and the board approves it, then at the end of this calendar year we’ll have an announcement that we’re expanding to either Houston or Austin."Daly
I personally would pick Houston over Austin for a few reasons for NHL expansion between these two candidates for the league. Houston already has an established professional sports culture, which is helped by the fact that it's the fourth-biggest city in the United States, with a population of nearly 2.5 million in the city proper and the greater Houston metro area quickly approaching eight million people.
Houston is also the sixth-biggest TV market in the United States, well ahead of the Austin metro, which ranks as just the 34th-largest TV market in the country. Houston is by far the biggest metro in the country without an NHL team.
Austin does have an MLS team, but most of the city's sports culture relies on the college sports scene with the University of Texas Longhorns. The city has never really had the chance to prove it can support a professional team on the scale of one of the big four sports leagues in North America.
While that doesn't necessarily mean that Austin can't support a big four professional sports team, or that they won't get one in the future, there are more structural advantages that would favor Houston in this conversation.
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