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23 Jun 2016
Las Vegas secures NHL franchise, Quebec loses out
By Tom Walker
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The new team will play at the brand new T-Mobile arena, which will hold 17,500 spectators
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Las Vegas will get its first ever major league sports team, after the 30 clubs in the National Hockey League (NHL) voted in favour of handing the city a franchise.
The as yet unnamed team will become the league’s 31st team and is set to play its first games during the 2017-18 season.
The team will play at the 17,400-capacity T-Mobile Arena, which opened on the city’s famous strip earlier this year. It will be the NHL's first expansion team since the 2000-2001 season, when the Columbus Blue Jackets and Minnesota Wild entered the league.
NHL will receive a US$500m (€440m, £337m) expansion fee from Bill Foley, the billionaire businessman who spearheaded the Las Vegas expansion bid and will be the franchise's principal owner. The money will be distributed equally among the existing 30 teams.
Foley said he hopes to have the name of the team and its logo in place by the start of the 2016-17 season in order to kick start marketing and merchandise sales.
It is suggested the team will be called Black Knights, due to Foley’s ties with the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The Black Knights is the name of the athletics teams of the academy.
"Our great sports town now has a major league franchise, the NHL," Foley said.
"It's the best of the leagues. It's a legendary league. Las Vegas is my home along with 2.3 million other people. We want everyone to be a fan. We're dedicated to it. We'll leave no stone unturned in our dedication and our pursuit of hockey here in Las Vegas, not just for our team, but for the community."
During the meeting of the NHL board of governors yesterday, the clubs also voted to defer and put on hold an application for another expansion team in the Canadian city Quebec.
While plans to establish a team in Quebec have not been buried, the decision comes as a bitter disappointment for Quebecor, the media giant driving the bid.
“We'll keep a discussion with the NHL," said Pierre Dion, Quebecor's chief executive officer and president. "We're very close to them, we have a great relationship with them, so we'll keep talking. That's how we have to interpret the 'deferred' and 'on hold'."
For more on Quebec's efforts to bring an NHL franchise into the city, click here to read Sports Management Q4 2015
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