NHL commissioner Gary Bettman announces that Seattle has been awarded a new franchise that will begin play in the 2021-22 season. (0:27)

SEA ISLAND, Ga. -- The NHL will add a franchise in Seattle, the league announced Tuesday after a unanimous vote by the board of governors.

The NHL's 32nd franchise will enter the league for the 2021-22 season as a member of the Pacific Division. That will trigger a realignment that will send the Arizona Coyotes to the Central Division.

The cost for league entry will be $650 million, up 30 percent from the $500 million paid by the Vegas Golden Knights to enter the NHL last season.

Congratulations, @NHLSeattle_! 👏🏼



The NHL's 32nd franchise will begin play in the 2021-22 season!!! pic.twitter.com/bekbMiwZos — NHL (@NHL) December 4, 2018

Seattle's ownership group had expressed a desire to enter the league in 2020, but the league had reservations about whether that might rush the renovation to KeyArena and, instead, pushed the entry date a year later. Those renovations have now reached a price tag of $800 million, Seattle CEO Tod Leiweke said. The initial projections were $600 million.

"When you include the cost of reimagining and building Seattle Center Arena, this is a transaction with a value of approximately $1.4 billion," NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said. "Which shows incredible commitment by everyone involved -- commitment not just to the NHL but also to the city of Seattle."

Seattle, the 18th-largest city in the United States, has not had a winter sports team since the NBA's SuperSonics left for Oklahoma City in 2008. The Sonics also played in KeyArena. The WNBA's Seattle Storm are one of the current tenants of the arena, but will temporarily relocate for the 2019 and 2020 seasons as the building undergoes renovations.

Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson was excited to hear the news that the city was getting another professional sports team.

Seattle's ownership group sent a strong contingent to Georgia for the board of governors meetings, including majority owner David Bonderman, Hollywood producer Jerry Bruckheimer and CEO Tod Leiweke, who most recently worked as the NFL's chief operating officer before he resigned in March.

"Today is an exciting and historic day for our league as we expand to one of North America's most innovative, beautiful and fastest-growing cities," Bettman said. "And we are thrilled that Seattle, a city with a proud hockey history that includes being the home for the first American team ever to win the Stanley Cup, is finally joining the NHL."

The Seattle Metropolitans played in the Pacific Coast Hockey Association and won the Stanley Cup in 1917. The franchise folded in 1924.

Tuesday's vote ended what had become a monthslong inevitability. In March, the Seattle ownership group launched a season-ticket drive and said it reached 25,000 deposits within the first hour. That exceeds the goal of 10,000 deposits -- which was reached in the first 12 minutes.

For context, the Golden Knights ran a season-ticket drive in 2015 and received 5,000 deposits in the first two days.

In October, the Seattle ownership group and Mayor Jenny Durkan made a two-hour presentation to the NHL executive committee in New York. The committee voted 9-0 to recommend and forward the bid to the league's full board of governors.

The Seattle group already has paid a $10 million deposit to the league along with its official application.

The new NHL expansion team in Seattle will begin play in the 2021-22 season, with home games taking place at KeyArena after a $800 million renovation. AP Photo/Elaine Thompson

Leiweke said there is no timeframe for announcing a team name.

"We're going to take our time," Leiweke said. "There's a group of owners involved. We're going to listen to our fans and we're going to do it right and we're not going to have a time pressure, but it's something we're working on each and every day."

Added Bruckheimer: "It's exciting and daunting and scary. ... You just want to do right for Seattle and bring great players and hopefully pick a name where we won't get too many people mad at us."

Bettman said several times that a Seattle franchise will benefit from the same expansion-draft rules used by the Golden Knights. Even after Vegas made a surprising run to the Stanley Cup Final during its inaugural season, Bettman said in May that he had received "no pushback whatsoever" from other league owners about repeating the same process for Seattle.

"I think clubs have learned a lot," Bettman said at a news conference before the Stanley Cup Final began in Las Vegas. "We needed to make the team more competitive. ... This was the first expansion in the salary-cap era as we afford all of our clubs an opportunity to be competitive; it wouldn't make any sense to not have the expansion team the same way."

The Golden Knights had hoped to become the first expansion team in the NHL, MLB, NBA or NFL since the 1950 Cleveland Browns to win a championship in its inaugural season. The Washington Capitals won the series 4-1.

The Seattle ownership group felt a sense of relief Tuesday. Various ownership groups had tried to both renovate KeyArena and make a bid for a franchise, to no avail.

"I never felt it was preordained," Leiweke said. "And, by the way, if it was, it would have happened a long time ago. This has been a real journey that's had challenges and it's not been for the faint of heart. My brother [Tim] deserves enormous credit for saying a building that others gave up on for dead [could be saved]. And now we can look at that building -- and it does have a soul -- and say its best days are in front of it.

"It's not just about hockey. It's about all the other events that'll come. Today is a day of hope, promise ... and we got a lot of hard work in front of us."

The addition of Seattle likely ends the NHL's expansion for the short-term future. However, some cities, including Houston, remain as possible relocation sites.</s>National Hockey League owners unanimously approve Seattle as 32nd franchise, will begin play in 2021

SEA ISLAND, Ga. (AP) — National Hockey League owners unanimously approve Seattle as 32nd franchise, will begin play in 2021.</s>It's official. The National Hockey League will be adding its 32nd franchise in Seattle, with the team starting play in the fall of 2021.

On Tuesday in Sea Island, Georgia, commissioner Gary Bettman announced the unanimous approval of the league's board of governors to accept the expansion bid for the city of Seattle at a fee of $650 million — a premium of 30 percent over the $500 million entry fee that Bill Foley paid to earn admission for his Vegas Golden Knights in June of 2016.

"Seattle, the NHL is thrilled to welcome you," said Bettman as he led off the league's press conference.

Ownership group representatives David Bonderman, an investment banker, movie producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Seattle Sounders owner Adrian Hanauer, a minority investor, as well as NHL Seattle CEO Tod Leiweke, were all onsite in Georgia for the meetings and subsequent announcement.

Back in the Emerald City, the NHL Seattle group hosted an announcement part at Henry's Tavern in South Lake Union on Tuesday morning.

Though the Seattle group and mayor Jenny Durkan had been lobbying hard for a start date of 2020, the league has rubber-stamped the team to begin play for the 2021-22 season.

The longer timeline will give the group more time to complete its now-projected to be $800-million privately financed redevelopment of the Seattle Center arena, which will be completely redesigned beneath its historic roof. The project is scheduled to break ground on Wednesday with an estimated completion in the spring of 2021, in time for the season of the arena's other anchor tenant, the WNBA's Seattle Storm.

The new timeline will also allow the still-unnamed Seattle NHL team to hold its expansion draft at the arena in June of 20201 and give the team the opportunity to prepare for its inaugural season at its new headquarters and training center, which will be the centerpiece of a redevelopment project at the city's Northgate Mall.

"It's rarified air to be part of the NHL," said Leiweke on Monday. "This is not only a hockey team, but it's going to solve an arena situation that has gone on way too long."

Tuesday's announcement marks the end of a long road. The NHL has been eager to expand to Seattle for years. Now America's fastest-growing big city, it's filled with passionate sports fans who strongly support their teams — as demonstrated when 32,000 fans put down deposits in a 24-hour period during the hockey team's season-ticket drive last March.

"That's when we knew this was the right idea," said Leiweke.

Seattle also fits a geographic need for the NHL, bringing the league's two conferences into alignment and setting up a natural rivalry with the Vancouver Canucks, just 140 miles to the north.

Seattle's hockey history dates back more than 100 years. As part of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association, the Seattle Metropolitans became the first American team ever to win the Stanley Cup when they defeated the Montreal Canadiens for the trophy in 1917.

To make room for the Seattle team in the Pacific Division, the Arizona Coyotes will relocate to the Central Division starting in the fall of 2021.

After Monday's meeting, Bettman offered updates on several other noteworthy items of league business:
• The initial projection for the 2019-20 salary-cap ceiling is estimated at $83 million. The final number won't be determined until next June but should be within about $1 million, Bettman said. The ceiling this season is $79.5 million, which marked an increase of $4.5 million from 2017-18. Seattle's expansion fee is not included in the hockey-related revenue that determines the salary-cap number.
• Bettman told reporters that the NHL would get involved in a potential arena development project in Ottawa if it is invited to do so, citing the league's involvement in successfully helping the Edmonton Oilers and Pittsburgh Penguins secure arenas.. "I think [a downtown arena in Ottawa] would be for a whole host of reasons nice, but (Senators owner) Mr. Melnyk has said if he has to make Canadian Tire Centre work, he can do that," Bettman said, referring to the news that a potential redevelopment opportunity for the LeBreton Flats area in downtown Ottawa seemed to have fallen apart following to a disagreement between Melnyk and his partners. "But again, let's not draw any conclusions yet. This is a complicated situation."
• No official talks have yet taken place regarding the NHL's current labor situation. Both the league and the NHL Players' Association have the right to re-open the current collective bargaining agreement on September 15, 2019, potentially triggering a work stoppage one year later. Setting a 2021 start date for the Seattle team moves that event out of the way of a possible strike or lockout.
• The league is also looking for labour certainty before setting its schedule for future editions of the World Cup of Hockey. Bettman says that in order to plan a World Cup for the fall of 2020, the league needs a commitment from the players' association no later than All-Star weekend in late January of 2019. Since the league and the players' association would split revenue from another World Cup event, the league is angling to use the event as a bargaining chip in the next labour negotiation.</s>It's official—Seattle is getting a hockey team.

The National Hockey League's Board of Governors unanimously approved expanding to Seattle, starting in the 2021–2022 season, on Tuesday morning.

The announcement leaves the Oak View Group, which is privately funding the project, to demolish and begin construction on the new stadium immediately, according to a press release Tuesday.

“Today is an exciting and historic day for our league as we expand to one of North America’s most innovative, beautiful and fastest-growing cities,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said in a statement.

After years of controversy over the Supersonics' exit from Seattle, and the city's next move to attract a National Basketball Association team, Seattle officials moved ahead with renovating KeyArena at the Seattle Center rather than building a new sports stadium in SoDo.

Elected officials promised a $700 million renovation plan to KeyArena would attract an NHL team to the city first, and possibly an NBA team. The Seattle City Council approved the plan in September, which is privately funded by the Oak View Group.

While the original timeline set a goal of bringing a hockey team into Seattle by October 2020, the announcement delays the expansion by another year to give time for KeyArena's construction.

"This is an awesome day for Seattle and Seattle sports fans," said mayor Jenny Durkan in a statement. "Seattle is one of North American's great sports towns, and we're about to become one of its great hockey towns."</s>The National Hockey League is expanding to Seattle.

The NHL Board of Governors unanimously approved adding Seattle as the league's 32nd franchise on Tuesday. Play will begin in 2021 to allow enough time for arena renovations. The as-yet unnamed franchise will be the Emerald City's first major winter sports team since the NBA's SuperSonics left town in 2008.

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan said at a watch party in Seattle: "I got a call from a mole in the room and it was a unanimous vote. We're getting hockey."

The decision was widely expected after the Seattle Hockey Partners group impressed the board's executive committee in October and had all the ingredients the NHL was looking for. Strong ownership led by billionaire David Bonderman and producer Jerry Bruckheimer, a downtown arena in a sports-crazed city and a season-ticket drive that drummed up 10,000 orders in 12 minutes all cleared the way for the NHL to add another team less than three years after approving a franchise in Las Vegas.

The owners will pay a $650 million expansion fee, up from the $500 million the Vegas Golden Knights paid to join the league.</s>Mets, Ironmen, the famous Totems: Seattle's hockey history is richer than you think Seattle has long had hockey teams, some more notable than most remember

Seattle on Tuesday finally got its long-awaited wish for a National Hockey League expansion team, a move precipitated by plans to remodel KeyArena into a venue designed with such a team in mind.

But it's hardly the first time Seattle has had serious hockey around town, and not even the first time the city has flirted with an NHL expansion team.

RELATED: 'A historic moment': NHL approves expansion in Seattle, team to start play in 2021

It was 103 years ago that Seattle got its very first professional hockey team, the Seattle Metropolitans, an expansion team formed by the owners of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association. The Mets would prove the first Seattle team to take home a national championship.

In 1917, the season before the NHL was even formed, the Mets won the Stanley Cup against the Montreal Canadiens. Seattle was the very first American team to win the Stanley Cup, a full 11 years before the New York Rangers would win it as an NHL franchise.

The Mets played in Seattle's first public ice arena, the Seattle Ice Arena, a 4,000-seat venue built for a whopping $100,000 at Fifth Avenue and Seneca Street, where the IBM building now stands.

After winning the Cup in 1917, the team would go on to appear in the championship game in 1919 (a series Seattle might have won had it not been canceled partway through due to a flu epidemic) and in 1920.

But at the close of the 1923-24 season, with game attendance dwindling to about 1,000 per home game, the team folded, as did its league.

In 1928, the newly finished Civic Ice Arena, constructed on what would later become Seattle Center grounds, opened, and with it a new Seattle team, the Seattle Eskimos.

RELATED: The best, worst prospective names for a Seattle NHL franchise

The Eskimos came as part of a new league, the Pacific Coast Hockey League, that would fold in 1931 and take the team with it. The league name would resurface later, but not the team.

One member of the Eskimos, Henry Harris -- brother to a former Metropolitan, Wilfred 'Smokey' Harris -- was known throughout the league for his rough play, and in the 1928-29 season, he held the record for the most penalty minutes.

Two years would go by before the Northwest Hockey League was formed and a new Seattle team, the Sea Hawks, in 1933.

The Sea Hawks had a mixed record, but in 1936 took the NWHL championship, the first championship since the 1920 Mets season.

In 1940, the team was sold and then renamed the Olympics for one more season before the league itself folded and took its teams with it.

Seattle was left with no professional hockey for the next seven years, but in 1944, the Pacific Coast Hockey League was revived as an amateur league and Seattle got another new team, the Ironmen.

The Ironmen would play as an amateur team until 1948, when the league became professional.

In 1952, the league became the Western Hockey League and the Ironmen changed its name to the Bombers, going 52-74-15 during the two years it played in that uniform.

With attendance low and the team's owner in trouble, the organization took a one-year hiatus during the 1954-55 season and returned under new ownership as the Seattle Americans for the 1955-56 season.

Again in 1958, the team underwent yet another name change to the Seattle Totems, a team that would prove competitive if not legendary.

During the following 10 years, the Totems would appear in five WHL finals, winning three championships. As SeattleHockey.net puts it, it was a golden age for Seattle hockey.

The Totems were the first American professional team to compete with a Soviet national team when the two squared off in 1972.

Two years later came the first time Seattle danced with the possibility of an NHL team.

In April 1974, the NHL announced that two expansion teams had been awarded, one to Seattle and one to Denver. The Seattle deal was awarded to a group headed by Vince Abbey, a part owner of the Totems.

The announcement triggered the folding of the WHL and the Totems moved to the Central Hockey League for the following season while awaiting finalization of the NHL deal that was expected to bring the team with it.

But Abbey had trouble coming up with all the financing necessary to finalize the deal, and, after failed attempts at buying other teams and moving them, the NHL withdrew the expansion for both Seattle and Denver.

The Totems, saddled with more than $2 million in losses, had to be folded in 1975 and with that, professional hockey in Seattle was over.

Another two years went by before a Canadian team moved to Seattle under a new name, the Seattle Breakers.

The Breakers, formerly the Kamloops Chiefs, were a junior hockey team in the Western Canada Hockey League, with players aged 14-20. The league was renamed the Western Hockey League (the second league by that name) with the start of the 1978-79 season and continues today with two regional teams.

The Breakers competed at the Seattle Center Ice Arena (the Civic Arena, later known as the Mercer Arena) and didn't exactly make waves (pun intended) throughout their eight seasons under the name.

After the 1984-85 season, the team was sold and renamed the Thunderbirds, a team that continues today.

The T-Birds would eventually move to KeyArena, a venue not designed strictly with hockey in mind, before moving to Kent's ShoWare Center in 2009, where the team plays today.

Information for this article came from SeattleHockey.net, MOHAI and Seattle P-I archival stories.</s>SEA ISLAND, Ga. (AP) — The National Hockey League is expanding to Seattle.

The NHL Board of Governors unanimously approved adding Seattle as the league's 32nd franchise today, with play set to begin in 2021 to allow enough time for arena renovations.

The as-yet unnamed franchise will be the Emerald City's first major winter sports team since the NBA's SuperSonics left town in 2008.

"Today is an exciting and historic day for our league as we expand to one of North America's most innovative, beautiful and fastest-growing cities," NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said. "And we are thrilled that Seattle, a city with a proud hockey history that includes being the home for the first American team ever to win the Stanley Cup, is finally joining the NHL."

The announcement came a few moments after Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan let the news slip at a watch party in Seattle, prompting cheers: "I got a call from a mole in the room and it was a unanimous vote. We're getting hockey."

The decision was widely expected after the Seattle Hockey Partners group impressed the board's executive committee in October with a plan that had all the ingredients the NHL was looking for.</s>SEA ISLAND, Ga. (AP) — Seattle is getting a National Hockey League team. It will just have to wait a little bit longer to drop the puck.

The NHL Board of Governors unanimously approved adding Seattle as the league's 32nd franchise on Tuesday, with play set to begin in 2021 instead of 2020 to allow enough time for arena renovations. The as-yet unnamed franchise will be the Emerald City's first major winter sports team since the NBA's SuperSonics left town in 2008.

"Today is a day for celebration in a great city that adores and avidly supports its sports teams and for our 101-year-old sports league," Commissioner Gary Bettman said. "Expanding to Seattle makes the National Hockey League more balanced, even more whole and even more vibrant. A team in Seattle evens the number of teams in our two conferences, brings our geographic footprint into greater equilibrium and creates instant new rivalries out west, particularly between Seattle and Vancouver."

The announcement came a few moments after Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan let the news slip at a watch party in Seattle, prompting cheers: "I got a call from a mole in the room and it was a unanimous vote. We're getting hockey."

The decision was widely expected after the Seattle Hockey Partners group impressed the board's executive committee in October with a plan that had all the ingredients the NHL was looking for. Strong ownership led by billionaire David Bonderman and producer Jerry Bruckheimer, a downtown arena in a sports-crazed city and a season-ticket drive that drummed up 10,000 orders in 12 minutes all cleared the way for the NHL to add another team less than three years after approving a franchise in Las Vegas.

Seattle Hockey President and CEO Tod Leiweke joked that he'd have to throw out some Seattle 2020 business cards because of the pushed-back timing. But all sides agreed 2021 was the best time to start.

"They've always felt that we should have a little more time to build the arena right," Bruckheimer said. "We wanted to bring it to 2020-21 because we want to get going right away, but it's not fair to the fans or to the players to not have a 100 percent finished arena when we start."

The owners will pay a $650 million expansion fee, up from the $500 million the Vegas Golden Knights paid to join the league just two years ago. Leiweke said arena renovations will cost $800 million and the addition of a state-of-the-art practice facility makes it a total investment of over $1.5 billion.

"(That's) a few bits of change which aren't around anymore," Bonderman said of the spending. "Seattle is one of my favorite cities and it's a pleasure to be here. If it was someplace else, I wouldn't have done it."

The NHL will also realign its two divisions in the West for the 2021-22 season: Seattle will play the Pacific, home to its closest geographic rivals like Vancouver, Calgary and San Jose, and the Arizona Coyotes will move to the Central Division.

"It was at the end of the day the simplest, most logical and least disruptive option we had available to us and I think it'll work well for the Coyotes," Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said.

The remarkable debut by Vegas in 2017, which included a run to the Stanley Cup Final, gave the league more confidence about moving forward so quickly.

Seattle will benefit from the same expansion draft rules Vegas had. Its front office is expected to be led by Dave Tippett, a former coach who would lead the search for the club's first general manager and staff. Tippett signed on to the project because of a connection to Leiweke, a major force in delivering an NHL team to Seattle.

Leiweke got his start in hockey with the Minnesota Wild. He also worked in Vancouver and most recently helped build Tampa Bay into a powerhouse in the Eastern Conference. Leiweke left the Lightning in 2015 to become the COO of the NFL and didn't have any interest in leaving the league office until the project in Seattle began to gain traction.

Leiweke's job will be to capitalize on a market whose demographics have changed significantly since he left the NFL's Seahawks in 2010 after being largely responsible for the team hiring coach Pete Carroll. Seattle is the largest market in the country without a winter pro sports franchise and has seen an influx of wealth in recent years. Even when he was running the Seahawks, Leiweke believed Seattle was ripe for the NHL and the response to the season-ticket drive only strengthened that belief.

"I woke up today thinking about the fans," Leiweke said. "What did they feel on March 1 when they put down deposits without knowing anything? No team name, an ownership group they didn't know very well, a building plan that was back then somewhat defined but fairly vague. Today is a great day for the fans and we owe them so much. That's why today happened."

The NHL's launch in Seattle will show how starved fans are for another team. Basketball is embedded in the DNA of the region thanks to 41 years of the SuperSonics and a lengthy history of producing NBA talent. When the rain of the fall and winter drive young athletes inside, they grab a basketball and head for the nearest gym to play pickup games. Basketball courts and coffee shops seem to be on every corner, but ice rinks are scarce.

A lot about Seattle is different from 2008, when the Sonics moved to Oklahoma City. The skyline is filled with construction cranes. Amazon has taken over an entire section of the city, joined nearby by satellite offices of Google and Facebook. The amount of wealth now in the Seattle market is part of the reason Tim Leiweke, Tod's older brother and the CEO of event facilities giant Oak View Group, has regularly calls the city one of the most enticing expansion opportunities in pro sports history.

Seattle has become a city of transplants due to the booming local economy. A hockey franchise would provide those newcomers a team to rally around, much like what happened when the Sounders of Major League Soccer arrived in 2009 — the last team added to the city's sport landscape. The Sonics were the first, joining the NBA in 1967, followed by the arrival of the Seahawks in 1976 and Mariners in 1977 after construction of the Kingdome.

There have been several attempts at solving Seattle's arena issues and landing either an NHL or NBA team in the years since the Sonics left, but none had the support of the city or the private money attached until now. Asked Tuesday about possibly adding an NBA team, Bonderman responded: "One miracle at a time."

While Seattle basks in the news, it's not clear the NHL will be satisfied at 32 teams even with the new team providing balance between the conferences and a natural, cross-border rival for the Vancouver Canucks. Daly said recently that there's no magic number, even though no major North American sports league has ever grown beyond 32 teams. Houston, Quebec City and Toronto have all been touted as possible new homes someday, but they'll also have to wait.

"We're not looking right now and I think for the foreseeable future at any further expansion," Bettman said.</s>SEA ISLAND, Ga. — The National Hockey League is expanding to Seattle.

The NHL Board of Governors unanimously approved adding Seattle as the league’s 32nd franchise on Tuesday, with play set to begin in 2021 to allow enough time for arena renovations.

The as-yet unnamed franchise will be the Emerald City’s first major winter sports team since the NBA’s SuperSonics left town in 2008.

“Today is an exciting and historic day for our league as we expand to one of North America’s most innovative, beautiful and fastest-growing cities,” NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said. “And we are thrilled that Seattle, a city with a proud hockey history that includes being the home for the first American team ever to win the Stanley Cup, is finally joining the NHL.”

The announcement came a few moments after Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan let the news slip at a watch party in Seattle, prompting cheers: “I got a call from a mole in the room and it was a unanimous vote. We’re getting hockey.”

The decision was widely expected after the Seattle Hockey Partners group impressed the board’s executive committee in October with a plan that had all the ingredients the NHL was looking for. Strong ownership led by billionaire David Bonderman and producer Jerry Bruckheimer, a downtown arena in a sports-crazed city and a season-ticket drive that drummed up 10,000 orders in 12 minutes all cleared the way for the NHL to add another team less than three years after approving a franchise in Las Vegas.

The owners will pay a $650 million expansion fee, up from the $500 million the Vegas Golden Knights paid to join the league. The NHL will also realign its two divisions in the West for the 2021-22 season: Seattle will play the Pacific, home to its closest geographic rivals like Vancouver, Calgary and San Jose, and the Arizona Coyotes will move to the Central Division.

The remarkable debut by Vegas in 2017, which included a run to the Stanley Cup Final, gave the league more confidence about moving forward so quickly.

Seattle will benefit from the same expansion draft rules Vegas had. Its front office is expected to be led by Dave Tippett, a former coach who would lead the search for the club’s first general manager and staff. Tippett signed on to the project because of a connection to president and CEO Tod Leiweke, a major force in delivering an NHL team to Seattle.

Leiweke got his start in hockey with the Minnesota Wild. He also worked in Vancouver and most recently helped build Tampa Bay into a powerhouse in the Eastern Conference. Leiweke left the Lightning in 2015 to become the COO of the NFL and didn’t have any interest in leaving the league office until the project in Seattle began to gain traction.

Leiweke’s job will be to capitalize on a market whose demographics have changed significantly since he left the NFL’s Seahawks in 2010 after being largely responsible for the team hiring coach Pete Carroll. Seattle is the largest market in the country without a winter pro sports franchise and has seen an influx of wealth in recent years. Even when he was running the Seahawks, Leiweke believed Seattle was ripe for the NHL and the response to the season-ticket drive only strengthened that belief.

The NHL’s launch in Seattle will show how starved fans are for another team. Basketball is embedded in the DNA of the region thanks to 41 years of the SuperSonics and a lengthy history of producing NBA talent. When the rain of the fall and winter drive young athletes inside, they grab a basketball and head for the nearest gym to play pickup games. Basketball courts and coffee shops seem to be on every corner, but ice rinks are scarce.

A lot about Seattle is different from 2008, when the Sonics moved to Oklahoma City. The skyline is filled with construction cranes. Amazon has taken over an entire section of the city, joined nearby by satellite offices of Google and Facebook. The amount of wealth now in the Seattle market is part of the reason Tim Leiweke, Tod’s older brother and the CEO of event facilities giant Oak View Group, has regularly called the city “a brilliant marketplace” and one of the most enticing expansion opportunities in pro sports history.

Seattle has become a city of transplants due to the booming local economy. A hockey franchise would provide those newcomers a team to rally around, much like what happened when the Sounders of Major League Soccer arrived in 2009 — the last team added to the city’s sport landscape. The Sonics were the first, joining the NBA in 1967, followed by the arrival of the Seahawks in 1976 and Mariners in 1977 after construction of the Kingdome.

There have been several attempts at solving Seattle’s arena issues and landing either an NHL or NBA team in the years since the Sonics left, but none had the support of the city or the private money attached until now.

While Seattle basks in the news, it’s not clear the NHL will be satisfied at 32 teams even with the new team providing balance between the Eastern and Western conferences and a natural, cross-border rival for the Vancouver Canucks.

Deputy NHL Commissioner Bill Daly said recently that there’s no magic number, even though no major North American sports league has ever grown beyond 32 teams. He said simply that expansion is appropriate when it adds value to the league. Houston, Quebec City and Toronto have all been touted as possible new homes someday.</s>The National Hockey League is coming to Seattle.

The league's board of governors voted unanimously Tuesday to award its 32nd franchise to Seattle, beginning in the 2021-22 season.

Seattle has long been a sought-after venue for an NHL franchise, but after numerous starts and stops, the process gathered a full head of steam when the city agreed last December to renovate KeyArena.

"Today is an exciting and historic day for our league as we expand to one of North America's most innovative, beautiful and fastest-growing cities,” NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman told reporters. "And we are thrilled that Seattle, a city with a proud hockey history that includes being the home for the first American team ever to win the Stanley Cup, is finally joining the NHL."

The Seattle ownership group, which includes David Bonderman and Jerry Bruckheimer, will pay a $650 million expansion fee for the rights to the franchise. The team will have an expansion draft in June 2021. The NHL will follow the same expansion rules it used for the Las Vegas Golden Knights.

The Knights began play in 2017 and have had instant success, reaching the Stanley Cup Final in their inaugural season before losing to the Washington Capitals. Las Vegas' success both as a market and on the ice has led to optimism the NHL could strike gold in the Seattle market, which has been starved for a winter sports franchise since the Seattle SuperSonics departed a decade ago.

"I think clubs have learned a lot," Bettman told reporters at the Stanley Cup Final of his outlook on expansion franchises. "We needed to make the team more competitive. ... This was the first expansion in the salary-cap era as we afford all of our clubs an opportunity to be competitive, it wouldn't make any sense to not have the expansion team the same way."
In ice hockey, the National Hockey League announces that its board of governors unanimously approved a new franchise for Seattle. The new team will start play in the 2021–22 season, bringing the league's membership to 32 teams.