The Josh Innes Show - Hockey To Atlanta? Houston?

Episode Date: June 13, 2025

It's looking more and more likely that the Atlanta area will be getting an NHL team. I find myself asking why Atlanta is getting a third crack when Houston hasn't gotten one. I've had people tell me that Houston won't support hockey. I don't buy that. Will more franchises be moving teams to the suburbs? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Now, obviously they moved the baseball team to Cobb County, and they've built that whole complex out there with the stadium and the whole little town, which is fine, but I think it lacks personality that you get from a ballpark being built in the heart of a city. Where is Forsyth County, Georgia? So it's around Cumming, no that can't be right. Forsyth County is a county in the Northeast region of the state of Georgia. So it lies within the Atlanta metropolitan area. What are some of the cities in here in Forsyth County, Georgia? Let's see.

Unincor... The city, Cumming, Georgia. I want to say that the Baton Rouge Zeppelin, Cindy, my dad's wife, I want to say that she's from Cumming, Georgia Oh, and it's spelled the fun way C-u-m-m-i-n-g that's the county seat of Forsyth County so like would the hockey team like would I mean I'm assuming if they build this in this Forsyth County and The major city in Forsyth County is Cumming, Georgia.

Is that like, is the team gonna be called like the Cumming such and suches or another, like the Cumming hockey team? God, that'd be a fun name. The Cumming Georgia Hockeymen. That's what I'm looking for. The Cumming Hockeymen, C-U-M-M-I-N-G and we are all immature here are we not? We're horn dogs. C-U-M-M-I-N-G. Coming Georgia is the seat of

Forsyth County and I do think that is where the family of the Baton Rouge Zeppelins comes from. That is Forsyth County, Georgia coming. Atlanta has been the home of two previous franchises, the Thrashers who turned into the Winnipeg Jets and of course the Calgary Flames who became the, sorry, the Atlanta Flames who became the Calgary Flames. Betman said in May, that's Gary Betman, the commissioner of the NHL, that Atlanta is a different place than it was when the Flames and Thrashers existed in terms of how big the city is, how robust it is, the sporting interest. It isn't really. Atlanta's the same fucking town

it was sports-wise in 2000. Like Atlanta. Atlanta and Houston are cousins of each other, but one of them is more black. One of them is more Hispanic, but they're the same fucking city and the interests are the same sports-wise. All they are is cities that care when you're winning and don't really give a shit when you're losing. Like that's how they are. Let's play a couple commercials and we'll continue. The NBA Finals are finally here and after spending the playoffs all over the Pick Six app from DraftKings, well, we're ready for the championship round and this is your last shot to win some real cash before the

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Get unlimited grocery delivery with PC Express Pass. Meal prep delivered. Snacks delivered. Fresh fruit delivered. Grocery delivery on repeat for just $2.50 a month. Learn more at PCExpress.ca. Like this idea that like Atlanta has grown in terms of a city that are in it's interested in sports since the last time the Thrasher there. It has not. They moved the baseball team out

into the burbs. The hockey team left. You've got a new football stadium, which is nice, but who gives like they have like the the dynamic pricing and shit because people don't want to go to the games and and you got basketball. So like there's nothing different about Atlanta and you don't even want to put a team in Atlanta. This $3 billion bid is in Forsyth County. How far is this from Atlanta? Let's see. I don't think the prior two visits have any bearing on whether or not we could go back if all the other

pieces that we referred to are put together said Gary Bittman. Look, I'm not against hockey going to Atlanta or anywhere. I don't really like the idea of expansion because I don't think leagues need more expansion because I don't think you need more teams. The more teams you have, the more water down the product gets. Like you could lose six baseball teams tomorrow and it would suck for those cities but probably the cities they leave from are cities that don't even really give a shit. Like if Tampa Bay lost baseball

tomorrow there'd be some octogenarians with roller oxygen tanks that would give a shit. Like oh no what do we do with the stingray that's out in center field? Like, who would give a shit? If the Miami Marlins left tomorrow, just two, if you lost two Florida baseball teams, would anybody give a shit? You know, like, then there are teams like the White Sox and Pirates who just suck all the time but have a ton of history, like 100 plus year old franchises, so you wouldn't like, you know, dump those kind of franchises. But like if you lost six MLB teams, you'd probably get a better product. If you lost six hockey

teams, you'd probably get a better product. Same with basketball, right? I wouldn't want to see those city's fan bases lose their teams, but you could probably get better because you have fewer teams that have to fill up more rosters of shitty player, whatever. But all that said, I'm not against the idea of Atlanta getting another hockey team, right? Like I don't think the city is that different than it was in terms of their interest, but if you get good ownership and

I guess you move out to this County, like I need to know where exactly or how far is Forsyth County from Atlanta, Georgia. Let's look at a map here. Let's see. There's Cumming, Georgia. Like you're way up there. I mean you're kind of out there. This almost feels like, let's just use Cumming, Georgia as the example, because I don't think this story says exactly where in Forsyth County they would build this.

The Dream, let's see, Forsyth County Commission Chairman Alfred John acknowledged the developments eye towards professional hockey. Let's see, the dream of an NHL team in the region is one step closer. The Gathering will not only be a world-class destination for sports and entertainment, but it also positions our county as a national leader in smart forward-thinking development. We are proud to support the project and all that it will bring to the community." I'll keep saying this, Forsyth County.

This story at least doesn't specify what part of Forsyth County, but let's just say, Cumming, Georgia. So, C-U-M-M-I, ooh the auto correct for me with the word coming. I hope Jilly never sees this laptop. There's a lot of hub involving the word coming. Coming, I better put coming to Atlanta. Let's see coming to, this just makes it look like I cannot spell the word coming. Coming to Atlanta drive time. So like thought, no not that everybody lives in downtown Atlanta, but like that's out there.

Let's see, coming to Atlanta drive. Let's see what the drive time is. It's an hour and 16 minutes from downtown Atlanta to this suburb out here, coming Georgia or Forsyth County. It's, I mean, look, it's already a decent distance from Cobb County to downtown Atlanta. I mean you're damn near in Tennessee at this point. Like, hey, have at it. And I think that's what they're trying to do. Part of the reason why hockey, if we're being honest, in an urban city like Atlanta, there aren't a

ton of black folks that dig hockey and there ain't a lot of white folks that want to go downtown in Atlanta on a Monday night to go watch hockey when they live out in Alpharetta and Kennesaw and Smyrna and all these other burbs. So maybe that's the play. That's kind of what they did with the Braves. Like people didn't want to go deal with downtown Atlanta on a Tuesday, but people have no problem going to Cobb County on a Tuesday to watch baseball, right? So maybe that's part of the play. I think we're going to get to a point in time where a lot of franchises and a lot of sports are going to start leaving cities because

a lot of the first of all these cities are all growing and expanding and they're moving outward, right? Like could you would do you think it'd be absurd if one day there were a stadium for a Houston sports team that was out in the Woodlands? Would that shock anybody? Like let's say you brought in a hockey team and the hockey team wanted its own arena and they're like, you know what? Let's build a stadium. We'll give you all these different tax breaks and everything to build a

stadium out in the Woodlands. That wouldn't shock me if they built a stadium out in the Woodlands. Just like the Bears are going to eventually leave Chicago and go out to one of the suburbs. Like they're getting tax breaks and other benefits to move out to these places. And what are the true benefits of being in the heart of a city now, right? Like if you move your team and build your stadium wherever you want it, you can then build up your

whole entertainment complex around it and you can make the money off of it. That's what the Braves are doing. The Cardinals have their stadium in downtown, right? They built Ballpark Village around it, which is basically a live type of complex. Like they have one at the New Rangers Ballpark. Xfinity Live is the one they have in Philadelphia around all the stadiums there. It's a place where you can overcharge for beer and food because you're pretty much the only game in

town. And yes, there are a couple of local bars that have survived around Bush Stadium. But for the most part, everybody goes to Ballpark Village, Cardinals Museum, all that shit in there, right? And they can all make it. You know who's making that money? The St. Louis Cardinals, right? These teams want to be able to go out, build a stadium, and then make all the money off of the stadium and everything around it, right? So what benefit do you have doing that

in a city when you can go build a ballpark out in the suburbs? Like let's say you built a baseball stadium in Pearland or something. I don't think that would happen, but because the Woodland seems like a more viable move or Katy seems like a more viable move or an area where there's already a shit ton of people right like not that there's not people in Pearland, but you get my point, but like if you go out to one of those kind of places and build a

ballpark and build your entire entertainment complex around it, cash is coming in right and that's why you would do it. but back to the idea of hockey right. I'm sure hockey could work there just like I'm sure hockey could work in Houston. The fact that that Houston can't get the NHL team team or seemingly get as close as Atlanta's getting to it when Atlanta's failed twice, that kind of pisses me off. But then you also have to really kind of dig into the history of these stories and ask yourself, all right, so why did they lose the team? Well, the ownership was really shitty and not committed with the Thrasher's and

it just wasn't a good situation. I can't be a hypocrite. If that were the case in Atlanta, then I'm not going to shit on the idea of a hockey team going back there because I live in St. Louis where there was an owner who was hell fucking bent on getting the Rams out of St. Louis and moving them back to LA to benefit himself for his own gain. I saw it happen. The city of St. Louis as much as I shit on it here, it could sustain an NFL team and people

would fill it up. They put in huge crowds still for shitty football for the last decade and a half, or last decade, the Rams were here, okay? So let's not act like it can't happen. They had a shitty stadium, horrible tailgating surroundings, dreadful downtown, yet they still put people in the venue because people like football. Here's the really some key elements. The most important element, you could be successful with a professional sports team in any city if that

sports team wins. Like one of the people on my Twitter was going off, not going off, but responded to me when I asked about Atlanta, why would Atlanta get another team and not Houston? And he said Houston's not a hockey town. Well, let me tell you something friend. When I was in Houston in 2009, Houston was also not an NBA when I moved there in late 2009 into 2010. I'll tell you what Houston also wasn't. Houston wasn't an NBA town. Houston wasn't a baseball town

and Houston was kind of a middling football town. Why? Because those teams weren't playing well. Houston, much like Atlanta, is a transient city and these are cities where teams have to play very very well for people to be truly engaged in the sport, right? That's not hard. It's like, look at the Rockets. The Rockets, for a handful of years after Harden and even with late Harden, they were just kind of there. Now you got a good young team and E-May as the coach, they went to the playoffs, had a high seed again. It's like, all right, there's kind of some jazz about the Rockets again. Look at the Texans. When

I got there, the Texans were just kind of blah. Then the Texans got good for a couple years and everyone was into it. You want to know, you want to see Houston being a football town? Whenever the Texans made their first playoff run and they were on their third quarterback and it was fun and it was next man up, I went to watch the Texans clinch their playoff spot against the Bengals. I was at the Houston Texans Grill. I still have the video somewhere. That place

was bonkers, but Houston is a city where you have to win and you have to win convincingly and you have to do it, sustain that success to keep people interested and that's most major American cities even like dude like people like to blow Philadelphia. I talked about how great of a sports City Philadelphia is you could go to those tanking year Sixers games for like 10 bucks right like it's there is no city that is immune to shitty sports the

Knicks everybody's blowing the Knicks now. Oh my God, the garden is electric. Was the garden electric 10 years ago and they suck? No. That's how every major American city is as it relates to sports. If the team is good, people will be in. There's no reason why the Vegas Golden Knight should be as popular as they are in Vegas. It's Vegas.

Nobody goes to Vegas for the sports. They go to gamble. It's a tourist city, right? How are they successful? They came out of the fucking gate winning. What you can't do is spend four or five years sucking. You get a year, you'll get a year and people be like, holy shit, it's hockey. And you'll have your diehard people like every city has for hockey. Every city has 20,000 people that love hockey. That's why virtually every hockey game is sold out

or at least looks full and season tickets are sold in big numbers because every city, even the passionate hockey towns have like 20,000 diehards. There are exceptions but like go to Philadelphia. What was the thing they used to tell me in Philly about talking about hockey? About 25,000 people give a shit passionately about the flyers. Everybody else will hop on board casually and if they're really good, everybody's a Flyers fan and that's kind of how it is in most cities as it

relates to hockey. So if you're in Houston and people say, oh can Houston handle hockey? Houston can handle anything if they're winning. That's it. I read a story that the people were surveyed. They ran a survey in Houston and asked Houston people if they'd like to have hockey and 57% said they'd be super into the NHL. What really was a disheartening thing to me was that more, a higher percentage of people in Houston said they'd rather have the WNBA. A higher number of people now who knows who they surveyed maybe they went to the sports bra and got a survey of the the people there but the idea that more people would want the WNBA over hockey is a true dick slap to hockey but point being in all of this is if you win people will show up and they will be into it that that stretch of even when the Texans were going nine and seven every year

with Bill O'Brien there wasn't true passion about the team, right? Then Deshaun gets there towards the end and you feel like you've got your Michael Jordan, he's a fucking stud. Then he starts getting finger popped in the asshole by ladies and being a sexual predator, and you hire David Cully, and for about two years with Lovey and David Cully, it's a fucking nightmare and no one cares about football. Then C.J. Stroud comes in, you go to the playoffs back to back years and hey, Houston Texans, number one, let's go. People are into it

again. So like it's very simple. And Atlanta is the same kind of city. People want to be part of a moment. There are very few cities. There's really nowhere in the country where you're going to fill up a venue for teams that are bad. Look at the Astros. 2012, the Astros averaged about 18,000 people a game. Fast forward to 2018-2019, they're averaging 36-37,000 people a game. Why? Because they're winning. So the idea that hockey wouldn't last like the city couldn't support, that's bullshit. Every one of

these major cities can support four major sports team. St. Louis could support a football team here. They just got fucked and are never going to get a team again, but they could. If there were an NBA team in St. Louis tomorrow, the NBA could be supported in St. Louis just like the NBA could be supported in Kansas City and hockey could be supported in Kansas City. It's all bullshit when they tell you it can't. What is the key determining factor in that because you're not dealing with teams that have long-term like the St. Louis Cardinals can survive because they've been here a hundred years. You bring

in an expansion team you better win a lot like the soccer team they brought here that everybody was excited about. Oh boy St. Louis City and they come out of the gate and they win out of the shoot. Go to the playoffs. They're selling the games out. Tickets are hundreds of dollars. I've been here a couple years of this now and the team stinks and no one gives a shit anymore. So you got this beautiful brand new soccer stadium built and I see none of the same vibe that existed when I moved here and the soccer team went to the playoffs and lost to Kansas

City in the first round. Winning cures all of it. So can Atlanta handle hockey? Of course they can. There's money in Atlanta. There's tons of rich people in Atlanta, Panda. There's ton of it. If you win and the games are fun and that's why the move is like a situation like that, it probably wouldn't work if you played in the big arena downtown. Build your own universe, get people to come out to your world, kind of go to your audience. I'm going to guess that there's probably money that people have that live

out in the burbs of Atlanta versus in the city of Atlanta. It's smart. And I think more teams are going to do that more franchises are going to see opportunities and they're going to see look, I think the whole setup in Cobb County, Georgia, is going to be one that people circle and go, okay. So we're talking about a whole village that we kind of control. We keep all of our people in-house spending money at places that we get something from. They're not running off to the local pub.

They're dealing with us and we're getting rich off of it. Why am I not getting me some of that? Like if the Texans ever built a new stadium, which I don't think they will, but if the Texans ever build a new stadium, one thing that sucks about NRG ain't a fucking thing around it to do. There's no bars. There's none of that. So I think we're going to get to a point where we lose that kind of fun aspect of sports venues that are like surrounded by like local establishments and we're going

to see more like the Cobb County, Georgia thing and we're going to see it in Forsyth, Georgia apparently. I think more places are going to do that. I also think Atlanta can support hockey. I think Houston can support hockey. You just got to go out and win. See again, Vegas Golden Knights is the example. How does Vegas sustain? Well, Vegas has the NFL which is going to work everywhere and Vegas has hockey which is winning and they're going to have

baseball and that's going to be fun for a while and if they don't win it won't and Nashville is going to get baseball at some point and when Nashville gets baseball, it's got to win and if it doesn't people are going to stop going. It's very simple.