The NHL awarded an expansion team to Las Vegas on Wednesday, but fellow applicant Quebec City wasn’t as lucky.
The new Sin City franchise, approved by a unanimous Board of Governors vote today, will begin play in the 2017-18 season. Home ice for the Pacific Division club will be the recently opened T-Mobile Arena, which has a hockey capacity of 17,368 and must have a pretty awesome cooling system.
The primary owner for the new squad is Bill Foley, whose franchise is on the hook for a $500 million expansion fee, which will be equally distributed to the existing 30 NHL teams.
“In the fall of 2017, when we celebrate the 100th birthday of the NHL, we will do so as a League of 31 teams,” NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said. “We are pleased to welcome Bill Foley and the city of Las Vegas to the League and are truly excited that an NHL franchise will be the first major professional sports team in this vibrant, growing, global destination city.”
“On behalf of the Las Vegas Founding 75, our 14,000 season-ticket holders and the entire Las Vegas community, I would like to thank Commissioner Bettman, the NHL staff and the team owners for their support during this process and the confidence they have placed in Las Vegas by awarding this franchise,” said Foley. “I also would like to thank everyone who supported us through this incredible journey. As I’ve said many times over the past year, Las Vegas is a hockey town and we look forward to cheering on our home team.”
The hockey-in-the-desert move marks the first league expansion since 1997, when the NHL added the Nashville, Atlanta, Columbus and Minnesota markets.
Meanwhile, the National Hockey League put its leading new Canadian opportunity on ice, deferring the expansion application by Quebecor and its ownership group there.
“Although the League sees Quebec City as a prime opportunity for future expansion, the Board of Governors concluded that the NHL’s lack of geographic balance, the belief that it would be best not to assimilate multiple teams into the League at this time, as well as the recent and significant devaluation of the Canadian dollar made it prudent to defer Quebecor’s application,” the league stated.
The accepted 31st team will build its roster through the traditional draft and an expansion draft.
The Las Vegas franchise will be given the same odds in the 2017 NHL Draft Lottery as the team finishing with the third-fewest points during the 2016-17 regular season. Its first round selection will be guaranteed no lower than the sixth overall pick.
The team then will select third in each subsequent round (subject to trades and other potential player transactions), the league said.
As far as the expansion draft goes, preexisting clubs can protect either seven forwards, three defensemen and one goaltender, or they can save eight skaters of any position and one goalie.
8 Times Skip Bayless Haters Stuck It to Departing ESPN Blowhard (Photos)
As Skip Bayless makes his exit from ESPN, he leaves behind a legacy of fan rage and controversy. From his hot-take tweets to his televised morning rants, Bayless has made a living riling up sports fans on topics ranging from his worship of Tim Tebow and the Spurs to his constant needling of LeBron James.
Turns out it's not just fans who are annoyed with him. As he says farewell to the Worldwide Leader, we look back at the times when the athletes and media with whom Bayless shared the sports world bit back.
Several guests who dropped in on"First Take" for an interview ended up going after Bayless. In 2012, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban spent a whole segment attacking Bayless' hot takes on the NBA. "You guys like to talk in complete generalities where no one can question you," Cuban said to Bayless' face. "You don’t ever use facts. You don’t ever use substance."
Earlier in 2012, Baltimore Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs called in to the show and quickly got fed up with Bayless' leading questions, eventually demanding he "be an analyst, don’t be a douchebag."
In 2013, Seattle Seahawks star Richard Sherman, registered his irritation with Bayless' claims that the cornerback's skills weren't in the same league as those of Darrelle Revis. When Bayless tried to bait Sherman into talking about Revis, Sherman called him "ignorant, pompous, and egotistical," and said when Bayless suggests Sherman is nowhere near Revis' level that loses credibility. "No, I don't,I gain it," responded Bayless in sports media's most unmerited mic drop.
Immediately after LeBron James won his third NBA championship, against Steph Curry's Golden State Warriors, Bayless wrote a series of tweets declaring that his favorite team, the Spurs, would have beaten James and his Cavaliers. This was too much for even fellow ESPN pundit Danny Kanell to take, as he responded to Bayless' tweet with a simple message: "Bye, Felicia."
Danny Kanell's ESPN Radio partner Ryen Russillo spoke at length on Bayless' last day about how no one at ESPN was allowed to openly disagree with him on any topic, and that Bayless got mad at other pundits at the network who challenged him. "When you disagree with Skip, it’s handled a different way," Russillo said. "A lot of us are just like, whatever. So that’s why we never bring it up."
Other sports media figures joined in on the Bayless pile-on. NFL Network anchor Rich Eisen tweeted that the best part of LeBron James' NBA Finals victory was that the basketball star "ends [Bayless'] career at ESPN that he built by trolling on him by shutting him the F up."
Also following Lebron James' NBA Finals win, ESPN NFL analyst Mark Schlereth retweeted a hot take from Bayless made in 2014, declaring that the now unemployed Johnny Manziel "will one day be bigger in Cleveland than his buddy LeBron ever was." "Good call!" Schlereth quipped.
The biggest swipe against Bayless came on SportsCenter, during which Scott Van Pelt dedicated his take on the Cavs' NBA Finals win to calling out LeBron critics who "have made your living ripping him." It didn't take much between-the-lines reading to see that Van Pelt was referring to Bayless. "Find a new ax to grind," the anchor said.
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The sports commentator has angered players and fans with his rants, and after LeBron James’ NBA Finals victory his media peers had enough too
As Skip Bayless makes his exit from ESPN, he leaves behind a legacy of fan rage and controversy. From his hot-take tweets to his televised morning rants, Bayless has made a living riling up sports fans on topics ranging from his worship of Tim Tebow and the Spurs to his constant needling of LeBron James.
Turns out it's not just fans who are annoyed with him. As he says farewell to the Worldwide Leader, we look back at the times when the athletes and media with whom Bayless shared the sports world bit back.
