The $500 million that Bill Foley and the Maloofs paid the NHL to bring hockey to Las Vegas was quite the chunk of change at the time.
Not that a half-billion dollars should be slighted, but the value of the dollar — and the landscape of sports expansion — changed when the Vegas Golden Knights arrived.
Foley paid more than six times the amount the Columbus Blue Jackets and Minnesota Wild had to pay ($80 million each) during the NHL’s last round of expansion in 2000.
If you thought that $500 million was a lot of money, wait until the sticker shock from the NBA. The cost for Las Vegas and Seattle to enter the NBA could reach between $7 billion and $10 billion.
It’s a combination of the market being set on the going rate for NBA teams for sale, and the revenue in place for the league’s mammoth media rights deal.
Apples to oranges
It’s important to understand that comparing the valuation of the NBA to the NHL isn’t a fair one.
The NHL was in a much different time in terms of popularity and outreach when Foley and the Maloofs shelled out $500 million. It was four years removed from a third lockout since 1994. The NBC media rights deal was so disjointed that playoff games were relegated to CNBC or the Golf Channel.
Foley cashed in at the right time. It also helped that the Knights were competitive from the get-go and became the most successful expansion franchise in modern sports history.
Six years in with a Stanley Cup to their trophy collection, the Knights’ return on investment nearly doubled to $965 million during their championship run in 2023.
Ten years in, the Knights are valued at $2.2 billion, according to Forbes’ 2025 valuation rankings.
Four years after the Knights paid their dues, the Seattle Kraken joined the league with a $650 million expansion fee.
Yet with one playoff appearance in team history, the Kraken are valued at $1.85 billion, according to Forbes.
For context: The Las Vegas Raiders’ relocation fee from Oakland was more than half of the Knights’ expansion fee — $378 million. The Athletics, when they begin play in Las Vegas in 2028, will have their $300 million relocation fee waived.
Prospective NHL owners look at those numbers and are, of course, interested.
The NHL has no desire to expand from 32 teams. Cities like Atlanta and Houston have expressed interest. Expansion fees in the NHL in this market have hovered around $2 billion, according to reports.
Just follow the money
To put those numbers into perspective: When the NBA last expanded in 2004 with the Charlotte Bobcats, the expansion fee was $300 million. The Toronto Raptors and Vancouver Grizzlies paid $125 million to begin play in the 1995-96 season.
Money drove the NBA’s success under then-commissioner David Stern. It has gone to a new stratosphere under Adam Silver.
The NBA has a larger global outreach than the NHL. Yes, the NHL has players from all over the world. When it comes to global branding, the NBA has long been miles ahead than the NHL.
Player marketing has been the NHL’s biggest weakness for years. The NHL’s latest media rights deal shows the league is trying to make up lost ground.
Rogers inked a 12-year, $11 billion Canadian Dollar agreement that begins next season. TNT Sports and ESPN’s joint deal in the United States is valued at nearly $4.5 billion.
The NBA’s new media rights deal with Disney, Amazon and Comcast is approximately $76 billion over 11 years. The previous deal with ESPN and TNT was $24 billion over nine years.
Signing the checks
The price tag for these prospective ownership groups in Las Vegas and Seattle isn’t eye-opening given how much NBA teams have sold for recently.
Mat Ishiba purchased a majority stake in the Phoenix Suns in 2022 for a then-record $4 billion. The price tag has only gone up since then.
Tom Dundon, the owner of the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes, purchased the Portland Trail Blazers for $4.25 billion on Aug. 13.
That same day, the Boston Celtics were sold for a reported $6.1 billion to Bill Chisholm.
It took two months to top that figure with the Buss family selling the Los Angeles Lakers to Mark Walter for $10 billion. The most marketable basketball franchise in the world has set the precedent with an eight-figure valuation.
That benchmark proves it’s not going to come cheap.
Las Vegas and Seattle are forever linked in the NHL’s landscape. They’ll soon be tied together in the NBA, and so will their bank accounts.
Contact Danny Webster at dwebster@reviewjournal.com. Follow @DannyWebster21 on X.