Could the Rockets eventually share Toyota Center in downtown Houston with an National Hockey League (NHL) franchise?

According to owner Tilman J. Fertitta, the concept is still regularly discussed.

“There’s not a month that goes by that we don’t have some type of talks about the NHL,” Fertitta told Houston Public Media’s Houston Matters radio program on Monday. “And it’s definitely something that one day I look forward to bringing to Houston, Texas.”

Toyota Center first opened in October 2003, and Fertitta said he expects major upgrades to the facility to be completed within the next four to five years. In theory, those upgrades could also make the facility more prepared to handle an NHL franchise.

However, the Rockets owner cautioned that he needs to be confident that a hockey business model could succeed in Houston.

“The studies that we have done, it’s a little harder below the Mason-Dixon Line,” Fertitta said in the interview, referring to hockey’s popularity in southern U.S. states.

Fertitta added:

It’s a little harder to put butts in the seats. And we’ve got to find the right team, and then we have got to just make sure that we can put the butts in the seats.

The Rockets shared Toyota Center with the Houston Aeros of the American Hockey League (AHL) from 2003 until 2013, when the Aeros moved to Iowa. Houston has never had an NHL team.

In the Houston Matters interview, Fertitta said it did not matter to him whether Houston is awarded a new NHL franchise or takes an existing team that is relocated from another market.

I know people in Houston want an NHL team, and I would love to be the one to bring it here.

By population, Houston is the largest U.S. or Canadian market in terms of both the city itself and the greater metropolitan area without an NHL franchise. As part of the lease agreement between Toyota Center and the Rockets, only an NHL team owned by the owner of the Rockets is allowed to play at the facility.