The National Hockey League is expanding to Seattle. The NHL board of governors unanimously approved Seattle as the league’s 32nd franchise on Tuesday, with play set to begin in 2021 to allow enough time for arena renovations.

“Today is an exciting and historic day for our league as we expand to one of North America’s most innovative, beautiful and fastest-growing cities,” the NHL commissioner, Gary Bettman, said. “And we are thrilled that Seattle, a city with a proud hockey history that includes being the home for the first American team ever to win the Stanley Cup, is finally joining the NHL.”

The decision was widely expected after the Seattle Hockey Partners group impressed the board’s executive committee in October with a plan that had all the ingredients the NHL was looking for. Strong ownership led by billionaire David Bonderman and producer Jerry Bruckheimer, a downtown arena in a sports-crazed city and a season-ticket drive that drummed up 10,000 orders in 12 minutes all cleared the way for the NHL to add another team less than three years after approving a franchise in Las Vegas.

The owners will pay a $650m expansion fee for the as-yet unnamed franchise, up from the $500m the Vegas Golden Knights paid to join the league. The NHL will also realign its two divisions in the West for the 2021-22 season: Seattle will play the Pacific, home to the team’s closest geographic rivals like Vancouver, Calgary and San Jose, and the Arizona Coyotes will move to the Central Division. The remarkable debut by Vegas in 2017, which included a run to the Stanley Cup final, gave the league more confidence about moving forward so quickly.



Seattle has become a city of transplants due to the booming local economy. A hockey franchise would provide those newcomers a team to rally around, much like what happened when the Sounders of Major League Soccer arrived in 2009 the last team added to the city’s sport landscape. The SuperSonics were the first, joining the NBA in 1967, followed by the arrival of the NFL’s Seahawks in 1976 and MLB’s Mariners in 1977 after construction of the Kingdome. The SuperSonics relocated to Oklahoma City in 2008, and are now known as the Oklahoma City Thunder.

While Seattle basks in the news, it’s not clear the NHL will be satisfied at 32 teams even with the new team providing balance between the Eastern and Western conferences and a natural, cross-border rival for the Vancouver Canucks. Deputy NHL Commissioner Bill Daly said recently that there’s no magic number, even though no major North American sports league has ever grown beyond 32 teams. He said simply that expansion is appropriate when it adds value to the league. Houston, Quebec City and Toronto have all been touted as possible new homes someday.