Atlanta next in line to receive NHL expansion team in latest update

The latest NHL offseason allowed the league to announce a new team in the Utah Hockey Club that started to re-ignite speculation about future expansion into the league. The latest reports put Houston and Atlanta as the front-runners for the next NHL team. If there is one major issue considered the key, it's a new arena. For a lot of established teams, it isn't such a problem, but expansion teams really do face an uphill battle.

While the expansion fee to become the NHL's 33rd member is estimated to be in the neighborhood of $1 billion, Atlanta definitely seems to have it covered financially. But the more enormous question is in financing a first-class arena, which would increase the total investment to $4 billion, which includes a combination of the expansion fee estimated at $3 billion for the arena. A group leading an effort to bring the NHL back to Atlanta has reportedly secured an initial $225 million in backing pending a successful bid.

Although the price is steep, the on-ice success of expansion teams like the Vegas Golden Knights and Seattle Kraken may well make that kind of investment pay off. It becomes a tough decision, though, as the league must ultimately decide whether to stay with Atlanta, which would require a new arena, or go in another direction, such as to Houston or Quebec City, where facilities already exist and the expansion process would be much easier.

Ultimately, a potential owner will find Atlanta's appeal undeniable. It is one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States and already has teams in the NBA, NFL, and MLB. If the arena hurdle can be cleared, serious discussions about an NHL return to Atlanta will become much more prominent in the near term.

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Source: Hockey Patrol
Atlanta favourite to make NHL return: Critical factor emerges