Both Austin and Houston have hosted minor league hockey teams, but it’s been a while. The Austin Ice Bats last skated in 2008, while the Houston Aeros shut down in 2013.
But hockey appears to be on its way back to one of these cities. Both Houston and Austin are under consideration to land the next National Hockey League team, joining the Dallas Stars as the league’s other Texas club.
But so far, the billionaire behind the new team hasn’t left many clues as to which city he’s favoring.
Greg Rajan, weekend sports editor for the Houston Chronicle, spoke to Texas Standard about each city’s pros and cons.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: So just to be clear, has the NHL definitely decided to expand?
Greg Rajan: Yeah, when they get to this stage where they’re talking publicly about a group and they’re referring that they’re exploring these markets publicly, it’s pretty much a done deal. There’s going to be a 33rd NHL team.
I talked to deputy commissioner, Bill Daly, this week and he said in a perfect world, it would start to play in the ’29-’30 season. So you’re looking at roughly three years to get everything started, build an arena in Houston or Austin, and then NHL would have its second Texas team.
So the question now, I guess, is just whether Austin or Houston. And the man who seems to be making this decision is this Houston billionaire Dan Friedkin.
Can you tell us a little more about him?
He’s not unfamiliar with professional sports. He owns a couple of European soccer franchises. The family’s wealth is primarily generated through Gulf States Toyota, which is like one of the biggest car distributorships in the world, especially this southern region, southeast region.
So that’s where they have the bulk of their money, but they have a variety of holdings. They have the Friedkin Group. The arm that’s pursuing the hockey team is called Pursuit Sports. That’s what they use to manage their sports holdings.
So Friedkin, his name has kind of been out there. ESPN had reported in 2025 that he was interested in an NHL team. He doesn’t say much. You could try to reach him. It’s hard to reach them or his people, but they go through a PR firm and they politely declined comment for the article we had this week, but they did issue a statement in June when the NHL announced they were exploring expansion in Texas. So it looks like he’s ready to become a big four sports owner in the U.S.
And the NHL is very, very careful about how they vet these owners. The last couple of expansions have been single-team expansions to Las Vegas and Seattle. It’s very targeted. They want to be in business with certain people. So they check these people out very extensively.
NHL in the ’90s had some missteps with prospective owners coming in. So they’re very careful about that these days.
So this is a guy they want to be in business with and that Houston has kind of been the white whale for the NHL really for the last few decades, the biggest city in the country without pro hockey. So I think Friedkin might be the ticket to finally getting a team here.
Well, and we mentioned Houston is where he lives. Does that seem to be the leading contender here, Houston over Austin?
I mean, it would appear to be the favorite, but the fact that Austin is being considered, and there was a report in the Austin Business Journal this week that they had rented some office space there, so they’re doing their due diligence.
Obviously, Houston’s not 100% locked if they’re still looking at Austin, but both cities have a lot of positive qualities to them as far as putting a hockey team in there, so I think they’re just doing their due diligence. And for this six-month process, it started in June, so we should have a decision, I would think, by mid to late December.
You mentioned each cities have some things on like the positive side of the roster. How about the negative side? What are the biggest obstacles in Austin and in Houston to landing the team?
I think the biggest obstacles in Austin, I mean, question is where would you put an arena? I’m not sure.
I don’t think the Moody Center, you know, with University of Texas works out from a capacity standpoint. I mean, you might have to retrofit it for hockey, but I don’t think it would be the kind of capacity the NHL would want. I think that the capacity there is about 15,000 right now.
Austin is a TV market in the 30s, whereas Houston is the No. 6 TV market in the country. The NHL has a U.S. TV deal that is up after the ’27-’28 season. So if they get to land another top 10 market in a league, I think that would be big.
I think in Houston, you always wonder where’s the arena going to be? Is it going to suburban? There’s really not room for a downtown arena.
Don’t think they would play at Toyota Center where the Rockets play because the way the lease is constructed there, the Rockets owner controls access to the building. So a hockey team would be a tenant in the arena. And I don’t think any NHL team would want to come in and be a tenant in an arena because you want those additional revenue streams from an arena. So you’d like to have your own facility.
So I think that would be the biggest hangup in Houston. But all things being considered, I would think Houston is the front-runner, but as long as Austin’s in the mix, there’s a chance for Austin.
The NHL does like to be the first pro team in a market. They’ve done that in San Jose, Columbus, Raleigh, Las Vegas. So there is that factor too, but I don’t think that would disqualify Houston at all.
So remind me, when are we expected to find out this final decision?
Well, the expansion process was first announced in late June, and they said it would be a six-month exploratory deal. So I would expect a decision probably sometime by Christmas.
