The NHL Wants Texas. Texas Still Has to Prove Where Hockey Belongs

For years, Houston has appeared on lists of cities that could someday get an NHL team. Austin, meanwhile, has grown into one of America’s most recognizable sports markets without a franchise in any of the four major professional leagues.

Now both cities are part of something far more serious than the usual expansion speculation.

The NHL is actively evaluating the possibility of placing its 33rd franchise in Texas, with billionaire Dan Friedkin and his family positioned as the prospective ownership group. But after enthusiasm surrounding the process grew during the summer, the league is making one point clear: nothing has been approved yet.

NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said this week that the agreement with the Friedkin family remains nonbinding and that both sides still have work to complete.

That distinction matters.

Texas may be closer than it has ever been to getting a second NHL franchise alongside the Dallas Stars, but the league has not yet decided that expansion will happen at all — much less whether Houston or Austin will win the team.

And that makes the next part of this story fascinating.

Houston and Austin aren’t simply two Texas cities competing for the same franchise. They represent two very different ideas about where the NHL should grow next.

Houston offers scale.

It is one of the largest cities in the United States and sits at the center of an enormous metropolitan market. For a league that still has significant areas of the country without an NHL presence, putting a team there would fill one of the most obvious holes on its American map.

Daly acknowledged that advantage this week, pointing to Houston’s size and demographics as reasons the city could be valuable to the league.

Houston also already understands major professional sports. The city has the Astros, Rockets and Texans, along with a long history of hosting major sporting events.

But that strength creates a question too.

Would hockey become one of Houston’s defining teams, or would it have to fight for attention in an already crowded sports market?

Austin offers almost the opposite proposition.

The city doesn’t have an NFL, NBA, MLB or NHL franchise. An NHL team wouldn’t arrive as another member of an established major-league collection. It would arrive first.

That possibility clearly interests the league.

Austin is young, growing and increasingly visible on the international sports map. Formula 1 already brings enormous crowds to Circuit of the Americas, while Austin FC has demonstrated that the city can build a strong identity around a professional team.

An NHL franchise could potentially own a space in Austin that would be much harder to claim in Houston.

There is also something powerful about being first.

If the NHL chooses Austin, it wouldn’t simply be expanding into another market. It would be making a bet that hockey can become the first major North American professional league to establish a permanent franchise there.

Houston is the safer argument on paper.

Austin might be the more ambitious one.

Neither city, however, has solved the biggest physical problem standing between Texas and NHL hockey.

An arena.

Commissioner Gary Bettman said when the evaluation process was announced in June that both Houston and Austin would require a new building. The overall investment connected to the proposed franchise — including the expansion fee and a new arena — has been estimated at roughly $3.5 billion.

That makes this considerably more complicated than choosing which city looks better on a map.

Ownership, financing, arena location, construction timelines and approval from the NHL’s Board of Governors all have to come together.

Even the previously discussed possibility of beginning play around the 2029–30 season isn’t guaranteed. Daly has indicated that timeline could be aggressive and that the league does not need to force expansion into a particular season.

And Texas isn’t operating in a vacuum.

Atlanta has re-entered the expansion conversation, with multiple groups pursuing opportunities in Georgia. The city has already had two NHL franchises leave — the Flames for Calgary in 1980 and the Thrashers for Winnipeg in 2011 — but today’s Atlanta is a much larger and different market.

The league is studying whether a third attempt could work under the right ownership, arena and location.

That adds another layer to the NHL’s decision.

Expansion isn’t valuable simply because another ownership group is willing to pay billions of dollars. A new franchise has to strengthen the league decades after the expansion fee has been collected.

The NHL knows how dramatically the right market can change its footprint.

The Vegas Golden Knights entered the league in 2017 and quickly became one of hockey’s most visible franchises. The Seattle Kraken followed in 2021, giving the league another major American market.

Texas presents the NHL with a different challenge.

The state already has hockey through the Dallas Stars. What the league is considering now is whether Texas is large enough — geographically, economically and culturally — to support something much bigger.

There is still no jersey.

There is no team name.

There is no arena under construction and no opening-night date circled on a calendar.

There isn’t even a final city.

But there is now a legitimate process, an ownership group, billions of dollars potentially involved and two cities offering the NHL very different futures.

The question is no longer simply whether professional hockey could work in Texas.

The Dallas Stars answered that years ago.

The question now is whether the NHL believes Texas is big enough for another team — and, if it is, which city deserves to call that team its own.