It is Houston versus Austin.
The people in Houston and in Austin, Texas who make public money decisions for sports venues have been quiet. The National Hockey League has told Tom Friedkin that he has six months to get an arena deal done in either Houston or in Austin and he gets a franchise. Houston has an arena but the NHL and Friedkin have no interest in the building. The arena is capable of hosting hockey games but Friedkin isn’t going to get the kind of revenue from that arena that he would need to be financially viable. Houston is the sixth largest television market in the United States, reaching approximately 2.8 million TV households. Austin is the 32nd largest media market in the United States, serving over 1,000,000 TV households. Austin is a government town but has developed a major tech presence. Austin is referred to as “Silicon Hills.”
Houston has 23 Fortune 500 headquarters. Houston is known as the “Energy Capital of the World”. Houston has aerospace, biotechnology, digital tech, and advanced manufacturing businesses. Austin has a Major League Soccer franchise but there is the University of Texas football team in town and the lion’s share of the sports spending money goes to Longhorns’ football. The National Basketball Association’s San Antonio Spurs franchise has played some games in the city. Austin’s indoor arena is relatively small so an NHL franchise would need a venue specifically built for hockey. A Houston NHL franchise would compete for the sports dollars with Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, Major League Soccer, the Women’s National Basketball Association and college football. But none of that matters. The people who matter are politicians who control municipal purse strings. The city that offers public money to help fund an arena gets the franchise.
Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191
Evan can be reached at evan_weiner@hotmail.com
