NHL commissioner Gary Bettman slams door on team in Seattle

NEW YORK – NHL commissioner Gary Bettman slammed the brakes on any Seattle expansion plans Thursday, citing continued uncertainty over construction of a new arena.

Speaking to a small, closed-door session held annually at league headquarters in New York with various sports editors and reporters, Bettman said the SoDo arena proposal put forth by Chris Hansen and Steve Ballmer needs to get much further along before the league considers any expansion. The political process in securing an arena has been allowed to stall, since Hansen and Ballmer have failed to land an NBA franchise and have little interest continuing their efforts without one.

“Until there is some better certainty about a building and its availability to an NHL team,” Bettman said, “there’s really not a whole lot of point in even going further in the thought process.”

The league had been intrigued by the prospect of Ballmer’s billions helping build an arena. There was also some thought earlier this year that Ballmer might become the majority owner of an NHL expansion franchise if it could help him eventually land an NBA team down the road.

But after spending the past several months exploring the possibility of relocating an existing NBA team to Seattle, Ballmer and Hansen were rebuffed in a reported $600-million offer for the Milwaukee Bucks. Soon after, Hansen donated some arena land to a local community organization and gave interviews stating he and Ballmer had zero interest in becoming majority hockey owners.

In a separate meeting at his league office later in the day, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said he’s intrigued by Ballmer’s resources and his considerable background in technology – a field the league would like to expand opportunities in. But Silver added he has no plans to expand anyplace for at least two or three years.

“For me, at least right now, my priority is not adding additional teams,” Silver said. “People have asked about Seattle and I’ve said, invariably we’ll turn back to expansion, as all leagues do. But right now I’m very focused on the financial health and competitive health of the current 30 franchises.”

Hansen left open the possibility of he and Ballmer becoming minority partners with a willing NHL owner. But that would require that owner to foot the considerable cost difference of building a hockey venue with no guarantee of an NBA co-tenant.

A hockey-first venue would also require a re-working of a Memorandum of Understanding Hansen has with the city and county. Up to now, Hansen has expressed little interest in pur- suing such changes on his own.

“Chris Hansen controls the rights to what may be a building in downtown Seattle and I think he controls those rights for a number of years,” Bettman said. “And so, unless somebody comes in and says ‘OK, we have an understanding with Chris and we’ve got this and we’ve got that and we’ve got that’ at that point, we may say ‘let’s listen to this more seriously.’ ”

Bettman said the biggest expansion criteria are the marketplace, arena and the viability of ownership. Unless all three are more than satisfactory, he added, expansion won’t happen.