Will the third time be a charm?
Is the Atlanta market a feasibility study away from regaining a National Hockey League franchise? Probably not as a feasibility study will just churn out numbers in support of the market having the ability to support a National Hockey League franchise. The NHL has been doing something of a ritual dance with the market for the past year. If a state-of-the-art hockey facility is built, it won’t be in Atlanta. The arena will be about 30 miles north of downtown Atlanta. Atlanta does have two major league facilities, a football stadium that houses the National Football League’s Falcons franchise and a Major League Soccer franchise. There is an arena in town that did house the NHL’s Atlanta Thrashers franchise from 1999 through 2011. The arena presently houses the National Basketball Association’s Atlanta Hawks franchise. But the city does not have a Major League Baseball team. The Braves franchise left for the suburbs after the 2016 season in a real estate deal and that is what would happen if the NHL goes back into the market. A franchise would be located in an arena that is part of a real estate development.
The NHL put a team in Atlanta in 1971 but the business was undercapitalized and was sold to Calgary interests in 1980. The Thrashers business was mismanaged. Commissioner Gary Bettman seems to be warming up to the notion that the market can support a franchise. “I think it’s a different place than when the Flames and the Thrashers left, in terms of how big the city is, how robust it is and the sporting interest. I don’t think the prior two visits have any bearing on whether or not we would go back, if all of the other pieces that I referred to are put together.” Those pieces are part of a real estate deal.
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