Another name emerges as a possible Houston hockey team owner

New player alert.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has said the league has received interest from multiple prospective owners about a Houston hockey franchise.

On Thursday, the identity of at least another interested party became public.

ESPN reported that Houston billionaire Dan Friedkin, who owns Gulf States Toyota and The Friedkin Group among his business holdings, “has emerged as a strong ownership option” to bring an NHL franchise to Houston.

NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly confirmed to ESPN that the league met with Friedkin’s group “on a number of occasions about potential interest in a Houston expansion franchise.”

Friedkin has experience in pro sports ownership through European soccer. His company purchased Italian Serie A franchise AS Roma in 2020 and in 2024, The Friedkin Group took majority ownership of Everton in the English Premier League.

Friedkin joins Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta, who’s expressed interest in bringing the NHL to town on multiple occasions since he bought the NBA franchise in October 2017. Fertitta, however, has included caveats, including in September 2024, when he said it had to be at a favorable price.

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The speculation in hockey circles is that the league wants $2 billion for its next expansion franchise (Fertitta paid a then-record $2.2 billion for the Rockets seven-plus years ago). In April 2024, Utah Jazz owners Ryan and Ashley Smith paid $1.3 billion for the Arizona Coyotes’ hockey assets and relocated the team to Salt Lake City, where it’s playing its inaugural season as the Utah Hockey Club.

Bettman has maintained over the past year that the league is not in expansion mode, saying at the October Board of Governors meeting that the topic “never came up in any form.” The league last expanded in 2021 to add Seattle and reach 32 teams.

Another complication involves an arena for a Houston NHL team. Fertitta, per the Rockets’ lease, controls access to Toyota Center, so anyone interested in playing hockey there (making the building “hockey ready” is part of future renovations) would have to work with him, or perhaps build another facility.

We’ve known about Tilman Fertitta, who is also pursuing a WNBA team, for awhile. Last May, we heard about the second potential owner, and now we have a name for the rumor.

I don’t know how seriously to take all of this. Thirty-two is a pretty good number of teams for a league, but that’s not an absolute barrier to expansion. It would be nice to hear Gary Bettman use that word in a non-negative context, however. Surely Houston would be an attractive market for the NHL, past history aside. I’m just waiting for a clearer signal before I buy into the idea.

Related Posts:

• Fertitta still interested in an NHL team
• Not just Fertitta wants a hockey team here
• A longer look at why we don’t have hockey in Houston