In Texas, NHL Appears Eager To Continue Southern Expansion Success

Soaring Revenues

The NHL’s projected $8 billion in revenues for the 2025-26 season is a league record and is up $1.5 billion from 2024-25. And it’s the sort of momentum that tells the league it’s the right time for more teams.

Expansion fees would equal half of that total on their own. So while the league’s growing well right now (and has media negotiations coming up at just the right time), increasing revenues by 50% is likely too enticing for owners to pass up.

The league has also been aggressive in pursuing expansion this past decade while MLB, NBA and NFL owners have not done so.

Since joining the NHL for the 2017-18 season, the Vegas Golden Knights (paid a $500 million expansion fee) have been one of its most successful franchises on the ice. Vegas made the Stanley Cup Final in its first year, and has played for the Cup three times (winning once) while making the playoffs nearly every season.

Though the Seattle Kraken have not enjoyed the same on-ice success (one playoff trip in five seasons), the team ponied up $650 million to join in 2021 and has helped the NHL add another new market flush with potential corporate dollars.

Also boosting bullish revenue projections? Adding two regular season games, to get the NHL’s total to 84 per team.

Southern Expansion Worked

In 1990, the NHL had 21 teams. A third of those franchises were located in Canada. Just one U.S. team was located West of Minnesota (the Los Angeles Kings). Those same Kings and the St. Louis Blues were as “Southern” as the league got at the time.

Just 36 years later, there are still seven Canadian teams. The NHL has seen “Northern” franchises move to cities like Dallas, Denver, Raleigh and Phoenix (since moved to Salt Lake City). It’s also expanded to cities including Anaheim, Miami, Tampa. Nashville and Las Vegas, among others.

While traditionalists will decry the league’s move away from what would be considered “hockey markets,” the long-term value of doing so has been readily apparent.

College hockey just saw its most-watched championship in a decade, and youth hockey is still growing in the United States.

This year’s Stanley Cup Final matched up teams from North Carolina (the Carolina Hurricanes) and Nevada (the aforementioned Golden Knights). A team from Florida, Texas and/or Nevada has played in the last seven Stanley Cups, and eight of the last nine. Teams from California (Sharks, Kings) and Tennessee (Predators) preceded that stretch, too.

Despite the handwringing, the nontraditional expansion strategy has worked. Potentially adding two teams in Texas, though, could test that theory in both the short- and long-term.

Double-Dipping On Texas

The Dallas Stars have been successful for much of their time in the Lone Star State (where they moved after leaving Minnesota in 1993), and attendance success has come with that. Dallas averaged a capacity crowd every night in 2025-26 while finishing with the second-highest point total in the Western Conference. Though it’s notable that stretches where the team struggles have quickly led to worse attendance.

Still, Dallas is among the best run teams in the league, and fans have faith they are annually competing for a Cup.

In the Austin area, Texas Stars fans have similar faith as well.

The club has increased attendance for four straight seasons, and is nearing a capacity crowd each night at the H-E-B Center. This past season was the Texas Stars’ fifth in a row making the postseason.

The question will be whether Austin’s support can scale up for an NHL team, which will demand at least 2.5 times more fans per night than the Texas Stars typically draw.

In Houston, there’s existing infrastructure in place with the Toyota Center currently home to the NBA’s Rockets. The Aeros also used to draw over 6,000 fans per night while in the AHL.

But how many of these Texas hockey fans have since been converted to rooting for the Dallas Stars? Could both cities peel off another Stars fans to each sustain viable support for full seasons?

The league’s done this before, to an extent, in California. The Kings were the only team in the state from 1976 to 1991, and then the San Jose Sharks and Anaheim Ducks arrived shortly thereafter.

Though it’s a very different and more established NHL now vs. then, there’s still a chance for both Austin and Houston to spur growth via natural rivalries with each other and the Stars.

There’s also still a chance that the league winds up opting for Houston and another non-Texas city. At least for now, it would seem that the NHL is going to bet heavily on Texas in its biggest southern expansion gamble yet.