The NHL has 32 teams, and it almost certainly won’t stay that way for long. In June, Gary Bettman announced that the league had entered an agreement with the Friedkin family to explore a franchise in Houston or Austin, with a total investment of $3.5 billion covering both the expansion fee and a new arena. Bettman gave the process roughly six months, and he noted that the agreement doesn’t prevent the league from exploring other markets, citing updates on Atlanta and Arizona at the same Board of Governors meeting. A year earlier, the league had told interested parties that the next expansion fee would likely be $2 billion, and Atlanta, Austin, Houston, Indianapolis, and New Orleans had all expressed interest. Quebec City and Southern Ontario remain the most frequently proposed Canadian options.

Every expansion debate eventually comes down to the same question: which city actually makes the most sense? Rather than relying on instinct or nostalgia, hockeyfreeforall.com built a statistical model to rank the 12 most commonly discussed candidates, stress-tested it across 10,000 weighting scenarios, and projected the financial picture for each market.

The Candidates

The 12 cities in the study are Houston, Atlanta, Austin, Phoenix, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Portland, Omaha, New Orleans, Quebec City, and Hamilton, representing the Golden Horseshoe. Each has either been named by the league as having expressed interest, has hosted an NHL or WHA franchise in the past, or appears consistently in expansion discussions.

The Methodology

Bettman has repeatedly said that expansion depends on four things: ownership, market, arena, and what a new team does to make the league stronger. The model is built directly around that framework, using nine measurable factors split into two groups.

The first group measures market strength. Metro population (18% weight) captures the size of the potential fan base. U.S. television households (13.5%) capture the value of the local media market, which remains one of the largest revenue sources in professional sports. Fortune 500 headquarters (9%) serve as a proxy for the corporate base that buys suites, sponsorships, and premium seating. Median household income (9%) measures the purchasing power of the average fan.

The second group measures hockey and readiness to access it. Arena readiness (13.5%) scores each city from 0 to 1 based on whether an NHL-caliber building already exists, with Quebec City’s Videotron Centre scoring a perfect 1.0 and markets that would need a new building scoring lower. Hockey culture (9%) scores each market from 1 to 5 based on its history with professional and major junior hockey. Competing major league teams (4.5%) are counted and scored inversely, since every NFL, NBA, and MLB team competes for the same entertainment dollars. Ownership and league interest (13.5%) captures whether a credible, active ownership group exists and how seriously the league has engaged with it. Finally, public transit access (10%) measures how easily fans can reach the proposed or most likely arena site without driving, a factor explained in detail in the next section.

Because population, television households, and corporate headquarters are heavily skewed toward the largest markets, those three factors are log-transformed before scoring, so that Houston’s size advantage over Kansas City counts but doesn’t overwhelm everything else. Every factor is then converted to a standardized z-score, weighted, and combined into a single composite, which is scaled to an Expansion Readiness Index between 40 and 100.

City	Metro Pop. (M)	U.S. TV HH (M)	Median Income ($K)	F500 HQs	Arena	Culture	Big Four Teams	Ownership	Transit
Houston	7.50	2.60	80	24	0.6	3	3	1.0	0.5
Atlanta	6.40	2.60	86	18	0.4	2	3	0.8	0.1
Portland	2.50	1.30	91	2	0.8	4	1	0.1	1.0
Austin	2.50	0.97	97	5	0.4	3	0	1.0	0.3
Phoenix	5.10	2.10	82	5	0.1	2	3	0.5	0.3
Kansas City	2.25	0.97	80	3	0.9	2	2	0.2	0.5
Indianapolis	2.14	1.20	76	3	0.6	3	2	0.3	0.3
Quebec City	0.85	0.35*	57	0	1.0	5	0	0.5	0.4
Cincinnati	2.30	0.94	76	6	0.2	3	2	0.1	0.4
Hamilton	0.82	0.30*	69	0	0.8	5	4	0.2	0.8
Omaha	0.99	0.44	80	4	0.6	3	0	0.1	0.1
New Orleans	0.96	0.62	63	0	0.3	1	2	0.2	0.4

Canadian television households are estimated equivalents. Hamilton’s competing team count reflects the Toronto market it shares, including the Maple Leafs, and Canadian income figures are converted to U.S. dollars.

Getting Fans to the Building: The Transit Factor

A previous hockeyfreeforall.com study found a clear relationship between public transportation and attendance: teams whose arenas are accessible by public transit draw more fans, while teams whose fans can only reach games by car draw fewer. That finding has direct implications for expansion, because the location of a new arena matters just as much as the city it’s in. An arena on a light rail line in the middle of downtown is a fundamentally different business than one surrounded by parking lots 30 miles from the urban core.

Each candidate was scored from 0 to 1 based on the transit access of its proposed arena site, or, where no site has been announced, the most likely site.

City	Proposed or Likely Arena Site	Transit Access	Score
Portland	Moda Center, Rose Quarter	MAX light rail station at the arena	1.0
Hamilton	FirstOntario Centre, downtown	GO Transit commuter rail downtown	0.8
Houston	Site not announced (Toyota Center downtown)	METRORail light rail downtown	0.5
Kansas City	T-Mobile Center, downtown	KC Streetcar, no rail rapid transit	0.5
Cincinnati	Downtown riverfront	Connector streetcar	0.4
New Orleans	Smoothie King Center, downtown	Streetcar and bus	0.4
Quebec City	Videotron Centre	Bus, tramway under construction	0.4
Austin	Site not announced	One commuter rail line and rapid bus	0.3
Phoenix	Site not announced	Valley Metro light rail, site dependent	0.3
Indianapolis	Gainbridge Fieldhouse, downtown	Bus rapid transit, no rail	0.3
Atlanta	The Gathering at South Forsyth or North Point Mall, Alpharetta	No MARTA rail service to either site	0.1
Omaha	CHI Health Center	Bus only	0.1

The biggest impact falls on Atlanta. Both leading arena proposals are in the northern suburbs. Krause Sports and Entertainment’s The Gathering at South Forsyth plans an 18,000-seat arena in unincorporated Forsyth County, approximately 30 miles north of downtown Atlanta, while the Alpharetta Sports and Entertainment group, which includes former NHL player Anson Carter, proposes a 20,000-seat arena at the North Point Mall site in Alpharetta. Neither site is served by MARTA rail. Supporters argue the arena should be built where the region’s hockey fans live, pointing to the Braves’ success at Truist Park in Cobb County, which is also outside the rail network. The model doesn’t dismiss that argument, but based on the attendance findings, a suburban, car-dependent arena carries a measurable risk.

Portland benefits the most. The Moda Center sits directly on the MAX light rail system, and the Winterhawks’ strong WHL attendance in the same building suggests the formula already works. Hamilton also gains ground, as its downtown arena is connected to the GO Transit regional rail network that links much of the Golden Horseshoe.

The Results

Houston ranks first with a perfect Expansion Readiness Index of 100. The fourth-largest metro area in the United States, Houston combines roughly 7.5 million residents, one of the largest television markets in the country, and more Fortune 500 headquarters than any other candidate, with approximately 24. Critically, it also has the one thing most large markets lack: an ownership group actively working with the league. Its only real weakness is the arena, as the league has made clear that a new building is part of the $3.5 billion price tag, and where that building goes will determine how much its downtown light rail access actually helps.

The race for second place is now effectively a tie. Atlanta scores 86.1 and Portland 85.6. Atlanta’s market numbers are nearly identical to Houston’s, with a roughly equal television market, a slightly higher median income, and the second-largest corporate base in the study. What holds Atlanta back is its history, having lost the Flames to Calgary in 1980 and the Thrashers to Winnipeg in 2011, and now the transit factor, as both of its leading arena proposals sit in car-dependent suburbs. Portland moves in the opposite direction. A hockey-ready Moda Center with light rail at its front door and one of the most successful WHL franchises in the Winterhawks push it past Austin, although the absence of a known ownership group still holds it back.

Austin (82.2) ranks fourth. It has the highest median household income of any candidate at roughly $97,000, no NFL, NBA, or MLB competition, and the same Friedkin ownership group as Houston, but its metro population is only a third of Houston’s and its transit network remains limited.

Phoenix (72.4) lands fifth. The market is enormous, but the Coyotes’ departure to Utah in 2024 and the lack of an NHL-ready arena weigh heavily on its readiness score. Kansas City (71.0) and Indianapolis (67.4) sit in the middle of the pack, with Kansas City benefiting from the NHL-ready, streetcar-connected T-Mobile Center.

The Canadian candidates present the starkest contrast in the study. Quebec City (62.2) and Hamilton (58.2) earn the highest hockey culture scores possible, Quebec City’s arena is fully NHL-ready, and Hamilton’s downtown rail connection moves it ahead of Omaha. However, both markets rank near the bottom in size, television value, and corporate base, and Hamilton shares its market with the Maple Leafs. Cincinnati (60.1), Omaha (54.9), and New Orleans (40.0) complete the rankings, with New Orleans held back by the lack of any meaningful hockey history or a hockey-configured arena.

Stress-Testing the Rankings: 10,000 Scenarios

Any weighted model is only as good as its weights, and reasonable people can disagree about whether arena readiness matters more than television households, or whether hockey culture deserves more weight than population. To test how sensitive the rankings are, the model was run 10,000 times, each time drawing a random set of weights centered around the base case but allowed to vary substantially. Every city’s finishing position was recorded in every scenario.

City	Base Index	Finishes #1	Finishes Top 2	Finishes Top 4	Median Rank
Houston	100.0	96.5%	99.9%	100.0%	1
Atlanta	86.1	0.0%	48.1%	97.3%	3
Portland	85.6	3.3%	42.9%	96.0%	3
Austin	82.2	0.2%	9.1%	92.1%	4
Phoenix	72.4	0.0%	0.0%	7.8%	5
Kansas City	71.0	0.0%	0.0%	4.4%	6
Indianapolis	67.4	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	7
Quebec City	62.2	0.0%	<0.1%	1.9%	8
Cincinnati	60.1	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	9
Hamilton	58.2	0.0%	0.0%	0.4%	10
Omaha	54.9	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	11
New Orleans	40.0	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	12

The results are remarkably stable at the top. Houston finishes first in 96.5% of all scenarios and in the top two in 99.9% of them. Second place is where the transit factor changes the story. Atlanta finishes in the top two in 48.1% of scenarios and Portland in 42.9%, with Austin claiming the spot in most of the rest. Portland is also the only city other than Houston to finish first in a meaningful share of scenarios, at 3.3%. Four cities, Houston, Atlanta, Portland, and Austin, finish in the top four in more than 90% of simulations.

Phoenix finishes in the top four in 7.8% of scenarios, a reminder that a market of more than five million people can never be dismissed, while Kansas City does so in 4.4%. Quebec City cracks the top four in 1.9% of scenarios, almost exclusively when arena readiness and hockey culture receive heavy weight.

Market vs. Hockey: Two Different Questions

The composite index blends two very different ideas, and separating them tells an important story.

The chart plots each city’s market strength against its hockey and access readiness, which now includes transit. Houston, Portland, and Austin occupy the top-right quadrant, with Houston carrying by far the strongest market of the three and Portland the strongest hockey and access profile. Atlanta and Phoenix sit in the bottom-right, with major markets but real questions about arenas, history, culture, and transit.

Quebec City is the most extreme case in the entire study. It owns the highest hockey and access readiness score of any candidate and the lowest market strength score. That single data point explains the entire Quebec City debate. The passion and the building are unquestionable, but the economics that the league cares most about, television value and corporate revenue, are the weakest in the study. Hamilton follows the same pattern, with the additional complication of sharing a market with the Maple Leafs.

The Financial Picture

The NHL projects roughly $8.1 billion in league revenue this season, or an average of approximately $253 million per team. To estimate what each candidate might generate, the model scales that league average by each city’s Expansion Readiness Index, with the strongest markets projected at roughly 15% above the league average and the weakest at roughly 20% below it.

Houston projects to generate roughly $291 million in year-one revenue, followed by Atlanta ($271 million), Portland ($270 million), and Austin ($265 million). At the bottom, New Orleans projects to roughly $202 million, which would place it well below the league average from day one.

The cost of entry varies just as much. Markets with an NHL-ready arena face only the expected $2 billion expansion fee, while markets that need a new building face something closer to the $3.5 billion total the league quoted for Houston and Austin. Dividing that entry cost by each market’s television households produces one of the most revealing numbers in the study: the cost per television household.

City	Year-One Revenue ($M)	Entry Cost ($B)	Cost per TV Household
Houston	291	3.5	$1,346
Atlanta	271	3.5	$1,346
Portland	270	2.0	$1,538
Phoenix	250	3.5	$1,667
Kansas City	248	2.0	$2,062
Indianapolis	243	3.5	$2,917
Austin	265	3.5	$3,608
Cincinnati	232	3.5	$3,723
New Orleans	202	3.5	$5,645
Quebec City	235	2.0	$5,714
Hamilton	229	2.0	$6,667
Omaha	225	3.5	$7,955

Houston and Atlanta cost roughly $1,346 per television household, the most efficient entry points in the study despite the highest total price. Portland ($1,538) ranks third because it wouldn’t require a new arena. At the other end, Omaha ($7,955), Hamilton ($6,667), and Quebec City ($5,714) would cost four to six times as much per household, which is precisely why smaller markets struggle to justify an expansion fee of this size.

There’s also a financial incentive for the league’s existing owners. A $2 billion expansion fee split among the 32 current teams works out to roughly $62.5 million per franchise, and two new teams would double that. That math is a large part of why expansion keeps coming up.

The Case for Two Teams

Conventional wisdom has long held that the NHL would need to add two teams at once to keep its conferences balanced at 16 and 16. The league doesn’t see it that way. Asked about an odd number of teams in June, Gary Bettman said that symmetry shouldn’t necessarily govern expansion, and he has since dismissed concerns about operating at 33 teams, suggesting the league wouldn’t feel compelled to chase a 34th franchise just to even out the conferences. That frees the analysis to focus on one question: which cities are simply the best fits?

Houston is the clear first choice, and the second spot comes down to Atlanta and Portland, the closest race in the entire study. Atlanta holds a half-point edge in the index (86.1 to 85.6) and finishes in the top two in 48.1% of simulations, compared to 42.9% for Portland. The two cities get there in completely different ways. Atlanta’s case is built on market size: a television market nearly identical to Houston’s, the second-largest corporate base in the study, and a metro population more than twice Portland’s. Portland’s case is built on hockey and access: an NHL-ready building with light rail at its front door, one of the WHL’s most successful franchises already playing there, and no need for a new arena. Atlanta’s weaknesses are its two failed franchises and its car-dependent suburban arena proposals. Portland’s is the absence of a known ownership group. If a credible owner emerges in Portland, or if Atlanta’s arena lands outside the transit network, the order could easily flip, and with symmetry off the table, a Portland franchise joining Houston in the Western Conference would be no obstacle.

The Hidden Cost: Talent Dilution

Expansion isn’t only a business decision. It changes the talent landscape of the entire league. Every NHL team dresses 12 forwards, six defensemen, and two goaltenders on a given night, which means the current 32-team league has 640 lineup spots. Two new franchises would add 40 more, a 6.25% increase, and roughly 46 additional full-time roster jobs once extra skaters and backup goaltenders are included.

Those jobs have to come from somewhere. The players who fill them are, by definition, the ones currently sitting just outside the league: the 13th forward on a deep roster, the AHL call-up who never quite stuck, or the veteran playing in Europe who was one step short of an NHL contract. In AB terms, expansion effectively pushes the league’s replacement level downward. Players who would have been below the replacement line in a 32-team league become everyday NHL players in a 34-team league, and the average lineup across the league becomes slightly thinner as a result.

History shows how differently expansion teams can absorb that dilution. The Vegas Golden Knights went 51-24-7 in 2017-2018 and reached the Stanley Cup Final in their first season, built largely through an expansion draft that allowed them to take advantage of teams’ protection decisions and cap problems. The Seattle Kraken, entering under the same rules four years later, went 27-49-6 in their inaugural season before rebounding to a second-round appearance in their second year. The difference between those two outcomes came down almost entirely to talent identification: which players each front office chose, and how well those players had been evaluated beforehand.

Why Talent Identification Matters More Than Ever

Under the most recent expansion draft rules, each existing team could protect either seven forwards, three defensemen, and a goaltender, or eight skaters and a goaltender, with first and second-year professionals exempt. Every team was required to expose players meeting minimum games-played and contract requirements. If the league adds two teams at once, the rules would likely need to be adjusted, and existing clubs could face losing more than one player. Either way, the process rewards the teams that know exactly which exposed players are undervalued and which protected players are overvalued.

That’s where modern talent evaluation becomes a genuine competitive advantage, and it’s a core reason hockeyfreeforall.com has spent the months since the 2026 NHL Draft building out the AB prospect system. Expansion creates dozens of new NHL jobs, but the players best suited to fill them are rarely the obvious names. Many of them are playing in the AHL, the SHL, the KHL, Liiga, or the NCAA, where raw statistics are difficult to compare directly to NHL performance. The deflator system exists precisely to solve that problem. By translating a player’s AB Score from any of 19 leagues onto the same NHL-equivalent scale, it identifies which players are already performing at or above an NHL replacement level, regardless of where they play or whether they were ever drafted.

The implications cut both ways. For an expansion franchise, the ability to identify NHL-equivalent value in overlooked leagues is the difference between a Vegas-style start and a Seattle-style rebuild. For existing teams, it determines which prospects deserve protection and which exposed veterans can be lost without real damage. And for the players themselves, expansion creates opportunities that simply didn’t exist before. Undrafted college players, late bloomers in Europe, and AHL veterans with strong NHL-equivalent profiles suddenly become legitimate candidates for NHL roster spots.

The cap environment adds another layer. With the salary cap rising to $104 million this season and projected to reach $127.5 million by 2028-2029, teams are paying premium prices for proven talent. An expansion team that fills its roster with cost-controlled players whose NHL-equivalent AB Scores already clear replacement level would have a significant structural advantage over franchises locked into long-term contracts for players paid on potential. In a 34-team league, the organizations that identify talent best, not the ones that spend the most, will be the ones that benefit most from expansion.

Limitations

The model’s inputs are approximate figures compiled from public population, television market, income, and corporate data, and the arena, culture, ownership, and transit factors are scored judgments rather than hard measurements. The revenue projections are scaled estimates based on the league average, not market-specific financial forecasts, and they don’t account for arena lease terms, local television rights deals, or currency differences for the Canadian markets. The Monte Carlo simulation tests how sensitive the rankings are to the weights, but it can’t correct for errors in the inputs themselves.

Conclusion

If the NHL expands again, the data points to Houston first. Houston finishes first in 96.5% of 10,000 scenarios, combines the largest market and corporate base in the study with an active ownership group, and offers one of the most efficient costs of entry per television household. The second team is Atlanta, but by the narrowest of margins. Its market size gives it a half-point edge over Portland, whose light rail access, NHL-ready arena, and proven hockey fan base make it the most underrated candidate in the study, and the city most likely to overtake Atlanta if an ownership group comes forward. Austin is a compelling alternative if the Friedkin family chooses it over Houston, and Quebec City remains the most passionate hockey market without a team, but also one of the hardest to justify economically.

Expansion will also reshape the league’s talent landscape, adding roughly 46 NHL jobs and making talent identification more valuable than ever for both the new franchises and the 32 teams they’ll draft from. The expansion decision will ultimately come down to ownership, arenas, and negotiations that no model can fully capture. But if the question is which market makes the most sense for the NHL right now, the numbers are about as clear as they get.