- New media market data ranks Houston No. 6 in the U.S. and Austin No. 32
- Bill Daly says the NHL and its owners are “primarily interested” in Houston
- Read below for the full numbers and where the 2029-30 timeline stands
Houston is starting to look like the obvious answer.
Media market figures published Thursday by Sporting News put Houston sixth among U.S. markets on the 2025-26 TVB/Nielsen table. Austin sits 32nd.
That gap carries weight because the league’s American media deals with ESPN and Turner expire after the 2027-28 season. Whoever gets the 33rd franchise walks into those negotiations as part of the package.
The raw numbers are lopsided. Houston has roughly 2.8 million TV households against just over a million in Austin. Its radio audience and metro population each run about three times larger. Houston’s 2024 metro GDP came in near $758 billion, compared with $268 billion for Austin.
Bill Daly hasn’t hidden which way the league is leaning. The deputy commissioner joined Pierre McGuire and Jimmy Murphy on The Sick Podcast’s Eye Test on July 29 and was asked where the Texas process actually stands:
“We’re primarily interested and our owners are primarily interested in potential franchises in Houston. We’d love to open the possibility that we might examine, consider and evaluate Austin, Texas as well, which as you may know is an up-and-coming market.”
Catch Daly laying out the expansion plan himself:
Murphy, who wrote up the interview, framed the same question for anyone still holding out hope for the state capital:
Austin’s pitch is growth rather than size. The city has added 14.8 percent to its population since 2020 and has no NFL, NBA or MLB team fighting it for suites, sponsorships and season tickets. That was the Vegas argument in 2017, and it worked out fine.
Gary Bettman opened the six-month review at June’s Board of Governors meeting, pairing the league with Dan Friedkin on a project that runs around $3.5 billion once the expansion fee and a new building are counted. Both cities would need that arena from scratch.
Daly wants definitive documents signed by the end of this calendar year and a team on the ice for 2029-30. He also cautioned there’s “a long way between here and there” with no shovels in the ground yet.
Expansion wasn’t the only thing on the table either. Daly called a move into Europe “inevitable on some level” while declining to attach a timetable to it. Watch the full episode:
The Stars get an in-state rival either way. The 32nd-ranked market just has a lot of ground to make up on the sixth.
