Gary Bettman takes a 33rd franchise to his Board of Governors in New York on Tuesday, and Elliotte Friedman says the room isn't sold on it.
Friedman laid it out on 32 Thoughts. Real opposition exists among ownership groups over whether to expand at all.
The league opened a six-month evaluation with the Friedkin family back in June. Houston or Austin, one of the two.
Bettman put the total investment around $3.5 billion. That covers the expansion fee and a new arena, which either city would have to build from scratch.
They're roughly halfway through that window now, and the harder question isn't the city.
Bill Daly didn't calm anybody down either. He said this month that the Texas project is far from done on either end and the governors still need convincing.
Deputy commissioners don't talk that way when a vote is already in the bag.
Jeremy Jacobs wants Houston and Ryan Smith wants Austin
Jacobs owns the Bruins and chairs the Board of Governors. He's reportedly backing Houston.
Geoff Hoffman of the Penguins is reportedly in that same camp. Houston is an enormous television market and the revenue case writes itself.
Ryan Smith owns the Utah Mammoth and is reportedly pushing the other way, against Houston and for Austin.
That's the league's old money and its newest owners pulling opposite directions on the same map.
Some have floated both cities eventually landing teams. Florida carries two franchises with fewer people than Texas has.
Atlanta and Arizona have both come up in the wider conversation. Neither is remotely as far along as the Texas bid.
Nobody expects a final answer out of Tuesday. That evaluation window is still running.
The temperature inside the room is the story. Opposition that's loud enough and organized enough can slow the whole process down.
Friedman's real question was simpler than any of it. Does Bettman have the room behind him?
He usually does. That reputation was built over decades of getting exactly what he wanted out of these meetings.
So does any of this actually change? A commissioner counting votes before a meeting works like a host scanning the guest list an hour early. You already know who's trouble.
The Texas answer arrives eventually. Whether the league wants a 33rd team at all is the question nobody put on the agenda.
Should the NHL add a 33rd franchise in Texas at all?
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