The price tag in joining the NHL has gotten a lot steeper. Back in 2000, the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Minnesota Wild joined the National Hockey League. The price for their owners back then was a mere eighty million dollars. Fifteen years later, Las Vegas and Quebec City will be expected to pay nearly half a billion dollars to join the league. With a cost like that, both perspective ownership groups are making absolutely sure they’re ready to join the NHL.
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Both groups had to put down ten million dollars (two million non-refundable) just to get their feet in the door. The league took a look at what both cities had to offer and the league’s executives felt what the two cities offered was good enough to move forward. Yesterday, both groups announced their intentions on moving ahead to the second of phase of their bid to land NHL expansion franchises.
Quebec City’s 18,259-seat Videotron Centre will be ready to open in September. It will be replacing the old Colisee auditorium, which was home to the original Nordiques. Quebecor, the organization running the expansion bid manages the new stadium and has declared multiple times that their intentions are to bring the Nordiques back home.
We confirm that the #NHL has retained Quebecor's candidacy for the 2nd phase of the expansion process. #Nordiques #Quebec City
— Québecor (@Quebecor) August 5, 2015
While Quebec City went to social media to announce its success in moving forward, Las Vegas went all Las Vegas over the announcement. Bill Foley, the billionaire behind the Las Vegas bid, issued a statement on vegaswantshockey.com. Foley said in the release that the second phase of the expansion bid will feature bidders providing the NHL information regarding their arkets and their arenas. Both teams will also receive information about the league.
The Las Vegas group has the leg up at the moment. They already have over thirteen thousand deposits down on season tickets. The Vegas arena is currently under construction and is set to open sometime in the Spring of 2016. Quebec City and Las Vegas have smaller potential markets than some franchise teams. Fortunately, Quebec has legions of fans willing to come back to the Nordiques and the Las Vegas group has an obscene amount of money.
There will be a third phase in the NHL selection process. There has been no time line for when that phase will begin. The league has no time table for its expansion either, but it’s expected that the league won’t be ready to integrate two new teams until the start of the 2017-18 season. The final approval will be in the hands of the NHL Board of Governors, whose current chairman is Boston Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs.