NHL Expansion Deadline: Seattle Owner Won’t Place Bid

The application deadline for NHL expansion teams was Monday afternoon, where Quebec City and Las Vegas submitted their bids earlier this month, but surprisingly, Seattle did not. Although Seattle is one of the NHL’s biggest, most desired expansion cities, but with the fast approaching deadline and high cost required with a formal expansion application limited the number of cities who were able to make a formal bid.

The problem with Seattle is logistics and politics put into place, due to the fact they also struggled recently to secure a potential new arena site for both an NBA and NHL team. Connecticut-based investment banker Ray Bartoszek wanted to bring an NHL team to an arena in Tukwila, a city that borders Seattle, although he could not meet the deadline. However, this is not cheap because the NHL wanted to see which groups were willing to step up and pay a $10 million fee – with $2 million non-refundable – to even apply for a team.

The problem being is paying $2 million when neither know if they can break ground for the first few seasons here. That arena, which would have required significant public funding, would only receive taxpayer dollars toward its construction if an NBA team was secured to play in it, bringing in more revenue for the city.