National Hockey League officially adds Las Vegas as 31st team

Bettman said the league made the move largely due to the persistence and strength of the ownership group led by Foley, a financial services tycoon, who has been working on the idea for three years.

Hosting a hockey game indoors, however, was a different proposition. On Wednesday, Las Vegas received its first major pro sports team after a morning vote by the league’s Board of Governors.

The puck will drop in the 2017-18 season.

Also addressed today: the status of an expansion bid for a Quebec City franchise from Quebecor, which was deferred and not rejected.

Bettman might have added “strange” or “risky”.

Construction workers eat lunch by an MGM arena being built behind the New York-New York casino-hotel in Las Vegas on April 7, 2015.

It is certainly not a traditional hockey market.

Players who now have no-movement clauses as a part of their contracts at the time of the Expansion Draft (and refuse to waive it) have to be protected by their respective franchise and will count towards the team’s protected list.

Bettman said the NHLs executive committees approval of the franchise application was unanimous.

The NHL wins because it becomes the first major professional sports organization to place a team in Las Vegas.

As NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said, “as the entertainment capital of the world, it has a worldwide reputation and enhances the league nationally and internationally”.

The board of governors also chose to defer Quebec City’s bid, despite the city having a brand new arena as part of its application to become the NHL’s 31st franchise. “All the positives are there for a chance for our game to grow”. And it’s not going anywhere. Also, the National Hockey League wanted to add only one team in this round.

Waiting on Vegas, which is also trying to attract an National Football League team, meant missing out on being the first to break new ground in the city.

The Vegas team has yet to be named, but Foley is a West Point grad and thus partial to the Black Knights, so he will work with the league on that. “Was Nashville uncharted territory?”

Officials behind the bid are said to have secured 14,000 season ticket deposits for the team, which will play its home games at the newly opened T-Mobile Arena to the south of Las Vegas’ famous strip. That means less to the 30 current owners than being able to split the $500-million expansion fee without giving a cut to players.

The economy of Las Vegas is built on tourism, but Foley said his group had gotten 14,000 season-ticket pledges and added 400 more this week.

It must select a minimum of 20 players who have existing contracts that carry through the 2017-18 season and the average annual value of the total contracts it takes on must be at least 60 percent of the 2016-17 season salary-cap limit, which is US$73 million.

The board concluded that “based on the process that will be used for stocking rosters, the best interest of the league and all teams would be served by limiting the number of incoming clubs to one at this juncture”. He likes things done in an orderly fashion, with a clear chain of command, much like Bettman does.

But I’ll largely be there to celebrate a milestone achievement by my adopted hometown, and to do my part to make sure it’s the beginning, rather than the end, of Las Vegas’ next chapter. The Hawks will have to automatically protect those players unless one or more waives their no movement clause.

The team needs a name.