The renovations are being made for basketball revenue purposes.
There will be a $180 million renovation of the Houston, Texas arena, a building that houses Tillman Ferttita’s National Basketball Association Rockets franchise and in 2027, the home of Fertitta’s Women’s National Basketball Association’s Comets franchise. Houston and Texas politicians will put up $95 million and Fertitta will kick in some money. None of the improvements are hockey related and Fertitta will get most of the revenue benefits of the renovation. The basketball-hockey 21st century same city arena usage revenue split suggests that unless Fertitta decides he wants a National Hockey League Houston franchise, there will not be enough revenue for some other potential NHL Houston owner to use that building without a solid working partnership.
In the 1970s, when the World Hockey Association had a franchise in the city called the Aeros, that featured Gordie Howe, there seemed to be some talk about Houston landing an NHL franchise in some sort of merger between the two leagues. That wasn’t to be and the Aeros franchise folded in 1978, one year prior to a so-called NHL expansion that took in four WHA teams. When the National Hockey League decided to go from 21 to 28 teams following an NHL owner meeting in the late 1980s, Houston once again became a city of interest and in that 1997 round of expansion, there were groups from Houston vying for an expansion franchise. Houston failed to make the cut. The then owner of the National Basketball Association’s Houston Rockets, Leslie Alexander, attempted to buy the Edmonton Oilers franchise in 1997 but the NHL found local ownership in Edmonton and kept the franchise in the Alberta city. There are questions. Would the potential team play in the city’s present arena or in a new building? The answer? Probably a new revenue producing building unless Fertitta wants a team.
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