The NHL Is Coming To Las Vegas!

The Las Vegas franchise would begin play in the 2017-18 season.

The team would mark Las Vegas’ first major league sports franchise, and would represent a comeback for the Maloofs, who were wildly unpopular in Sacramento by the time they sold their controlling interest in the Kings in May 2013.

Other sports leagues are also beginning to eye Las Vegas-most notably the NFL-and the Oakland Raiders, whom are in talks to move from the East Bay as well.

The NHL has chose to expand to just a single city, and that city will be Las Vegas, according to an AP report.

Black Knight Sports And Entertainment earlier declared that it had received season ticket deposits from over 14,000 people alongside National Hockey League approval to play in the T-Mobile Arena behind the New York-New York Hotel And Casino.

The NHL’s Board of Governors is next scheduled to meet June 22, but one source told the AP expansion was a “done deal” after the NHL’s executive committee recommended the move. Ground was broken on T-Mobile Arena in 2014, with the venue constructed as a potential home for an National Hockey League franchise. He cited a 2013 analysis piece he wrote that said there are fewer hockey fans in Vegas than in some of the NHL’s smallest markets.

The expansion fee is supposed to be in the $500-million range and the arena will seat, about 10-percent less, for hockey. And there’s also time to chat about Cristiano Ronaldo’s comments on Iceland’s celebrations, Brooke Henderson’s emergence as a Canadian golfing superstar and the unusual scene in LA between the Galaxy and a beer league team. Las Vegas also had the benefit of an ownership group in place, as businessman Bill Foley has led a series of investors and publicly lobbied for a team over the last several years. Also, imagine a brand new multi-million dollar stadium on the Las Vegas Strip. The arena’s first sporting event was Saul Alvarez vs. Amir Khan for the WBC middleweight championship on May 7.

Bettman has said he doesn’t worry about the league’s product suffering from dilution. After all, the bid has been put forward by a company called Black Knight Sports and Entertainment, the same name as Foley’s financial services company. Foley graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.