REPORT: NHL Expansion Fees Skyrocket Thanks to Gary Bettman

Ever since the Seattle Kraken joined the NHL in 2021, news about future expansion in the league has remained fairly quiet.

However, insider Darren Dreger reports that the NHL has set a new dollar amount for how much a future expansion team will have to pay to join the league — and it's a pretty penny, to say the least.

Even if expansion won't be looming for the foreseeable future, a price of $2 billion seems shockingly steep for many expansion markets to pay.

According to Forbes, only two NHL franchises — the New York Rangers and Toronto Maple Leafs — are valued at $2 billion USD or more. This not only means that the price for expansion has been set at a seemingly unrealistic amount, but it seems like this is Bettman's strategic attempt to definitively put a kibosh on expansion for the years to to come.

With markets like Houston, Quebec City, Salt Lake City, and Atlanta (on the latter's third attempt) actively seeking NHL expansion franchises, it's hard to see how any of them will afford that exorbitant fee in the near future. Since the Kraken only had to pay $650 million USD, it's equally difficult not to view this amount as prohibitive for most future NHL markets.